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Pace frowned. “I still don’t like the whole thing.”

“The whole thing?” Corran pointed toward several fiberplast equipment crates at the mouth of the cave. “You took to packing up the Vong artifacts quickly enough. You’re even abandoning equipment to do so.”

“It was old anyway, and I have a budget surplus. I spend it or don’t get as much next year.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You know what I mean.”

“Perhaps I do.” Since the capture of the two students, Corran and Ganner had reconnoitered the alien village each day. As nearly as they had been able to determine, the Yuuzhan Vong were there taking samples of the local flora and fauna, as well as searching for something. They herded the slaves out and set up search grids. They poked and probed the sand for things, and Corran was fairly certain that what they wanted resided in the crates.

The students had determined that Bimmiel’s magnetic field shifted from time to time, which meant if the Yuuzhan Vong were using old measurements to find the cave, they would be off a bit. Of course, capturing Vil and Denna means they have a direct line to us. Corran was actually surprised that the Yuuzhan Vong had not come for them yet.

In their scouting missions Corran and Ganner had managed to determine a number of things. First, they knew the two students were being held in the large shell. They were not in good shape, but their sense in the Force had not yet begun to diminish. This everyone took as a good sign.

The prisoners, on the other hand, had deteriorated. The Jedi witnessed no more murders, but the number of slaves shrank all the same. The growths became larger, and the pain the slaves were in was all that much more obvious. There seemed to be very little peace for them at night.

Corran had seen only the two warriors and began to assume there were, in fact, only two of them. He knew that was a dangerous assumption, but he clung to it because if there were more, there just was no way the rescue mission could succeed. He felt, deep down, that they would succeed, at least partially, and he let his trust in the Force reinforce his belief about the number of Yuuzhan Vong they would face.

Ganner had seized upon Corran’s belief about the number of Yuuzhan Vong and used it to grind on him. The younger Jedi reminded him again and again that if they had just acted that night, none of the students would have been in danger and they could have all been away from Bimmiel a long time since. Corran countered that Yuuzhan Vong reinforcements could have arrived if the two stationed on the world didn’t report regularly, making things worse, but he knew that was a sham argument. If they were reporting to off-world sites, more Vong would already be here because of the discovery of humans.

He looked at Dr. Pace and let his shoulders slump a bit. “We have been over all of this, I think, and I understand your protests over parts of the plan. Ganner and I will slip into the camp and liberate your students. Trista has learned enough about flying the freighter that she’ll be able to handle getting it that far. It’s bigger than a blastboat, but her experience piloting one of them should suffice. She laces the village with stuff you’ve been synthing up, Ganner and I get out of there, and we leave.”

“Yes, we leave . . . We leave the slaves behind.” Pace’s eyes narrowed. “When we spray the area with the virus that will change the bacteria, we’ll also be dumping an incredible amount of killscent. From your reports the slashrats actually have tunnels running under the village basin. When the killscent gets down there, they’ll come up and will be everywhere. The slaves don’t stand a chance.”

A chill writhed up Corran’s spine. “I know that, and I know we’ve asked you to trust us, to trust the sense Ganner and I have of the slaves. They’re dying by little bits and pieces. I’ve never felt anything similar through the Force, but I know they’re very sick and won’t survive.”

His head came up. “And you know we can’t take them with us. We don’t