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“The ship carrying Alpha Red,” Lando said.

And now closing on Zonama Sekot.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Jag thought of himself first and foremost as a starfighter pilot, not a dirt flier. He had accepted the assignment to lead Twins Suns onto Coruscant, but without the enthusiasm he might have demonstrated for a space mission. Like many who had earned their wings in zero-g, atmosphere was anathema. Maneuvers weren’t so much performed as wrested from a craft—no matter how aerodynamic the design or how responsive the repulsorlift engine. The carbon-scored green X-wing he had been given at Westport felt sluggish and unwieldy, especially compared to a clawcraft. But Jag’s complaints were only that. There was a mission to execute, and he was not about to shirk his commitment to seeing it through.

Streaking east from the now-Alliance-occupied landing field, he wove the snubfighter through a hail of ascending plasma fire and descending wreckage. Dominating the forward view was the rounded summit of Shimrra’s fortress, rising from the thick blanket of cloud cover and smoke that smothered most of the sacred precinct. Only two years earlier the elegant summits of dozens of spacescrapers would have been visible above the clouds, but now there was only the craggy mountaintop.

Somewhere below, Jaina was moving toward the same target, with her brother and uncle, and a small team of commandos and droids. Take care of yourself, she had said to him on the flooded balcony where the Millennium Falcon had set the Jedi down. And Jag meant to do just that. When he had urged Jaina to do the same, she had replied, The Force will take care of me.

He hadn’t debated the matter. He wanted it to be true with all his heart.

Ahead of him, twenty starfighters were circling the Citadel, loosing laser bolts, proton torpedoes, and concussion missiles at the summit. A sense of hopelessness began to erode Jag’s resolve. Even without the insatiable voids that were engulfing nearly every starfighter volley, the Citadel appeared to be impregnable. It was like attempting to blow apart a mountain. There were no coralskippers to contend with, but outpourings of plasma from deep pits in the Citadel walls were effortlessly overwhelming the shields of the starfighters.

The X-wing’s droid sent flight information to the cockpit displays. Jag dialed the comm to the tactical net.

“This is worse than punching past the orbital dovin basals,” a pilot was saying.

“Keep a hand on your grab-safety toggle, or those voids’ll take you down,” another said.

“They’re swallowing every bolt I’m feeding them.”

“Just watch out they don’t take a fancy to you.”

“Yeah, they’ve developed a real taste for starfighters.”

“Especially yellow ones with black stripes.”

“Copy that, Rogue Leader.”

“All ships form up on me for a portwise sweep. Set your weapons for stutterfire and follow up with whatever torps and missiles you’ve got left. Remember: it may look like a mountain but it’s actually a ship. Which means it can be cracked open.”

“Following you in, Rogue One.”

Jag saw that two of the fighters off his starboard wingtip were clawcraft, and he opened a channel to the closest one.

“Twin Suns Four, I’ve got your port side.”

“Jag!” the pilot returned. “I thought you were dead!”

“Saved by a tree, of all things, Shawnkyr.”

“Are you about ready to go home now?”

“As soon as we finish this—you have my word.”

She laughed shortly. “This part of the galaxy has made a romantic of you, Fel.”

“Still watching my back, is that it?”

“Who will if I won’t?” Shawnkyr said. “Oh, I forgot. And just where is the Sword?”

“Below—moving west.”

“Then we’d better take care not to bring this mountain down on her head.”

“After he did so well with the mon duul,” Jaina found time to say between swings of her lightsaber.

Pinned down in a grove of fingerleaf trees one hundred meters from the westernmost of the walkways that accessed the Citadel, she and Luke were fending off streams of attack bugs that