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Luke’s foe flicked the serpent head of his amphistaff forward. Luke sidestepped and the poisoned thing snapped to full extension a hairsbreadth from his side. Then Mara’s hand closed around it, over the head, and yanked. Luke’s foe stumbled forward, off balance for one deadly moment, and Luke swung his lightsaber into the vulnerable gap beneath the warrior’s helmet. Flesh boiled and severed. The warrior fell.

Luke spun. Mara was flinging the captured amphistaff into the face of her foe; the warrior contemptuously brushed it aside and raised his weapon.

Luke flung his own lightsaber spinning toward the warrior, then added a deft touch with the Force to make its flight eccentric, unpredictable. The warrior batted it aside as well, but the distraction was too long; Mara drove in with her lightsaber, punching through the warrior’s right arm socket, shearing his arm completely off. As he fell, she followed through with a thrust to the face.

Luke beckoned and his lightsaber, depowered, flew back into his hand. He snapped it on again. “Tahiri?”

“Here.” She emerged from the screen of fronds, unhurt. “Look what mine was carrying.” In her hand was a metal stake.

Luke frowned. “Is that the one we just planted?”

“No, a different one.” Mara smiled. “Success.”

“Let’s go,” Luke said. “Before any more decide to visit.”

They headed on to their next planting spot. There, they’d hammer another stake in—a stake that did contain sensor equipment, but which was designed to be found and removed by the Yuuzhan Vong.

For the real sensors were in Luke’s bag. Each was a little droid, the size of the ubiquitous little utility droids found all over capital ships. These contained the same gravitic sensors as the spikes, but also burrowing motivators that allowed them to exit the slit at the bottom of Luke’s backpack and dig their way into soft soil. The Yuuzhan Vong might see every spike planted, might remove every one … but odds were good they wouldn’t detect a single burrowing droid.

Luke had fought against many sneaky people, but was usually happy to have sneaky people on his side.

As they executed kills on target after target, Jaina became more proficient at choosing targets Jag couldn’t anticipate; the time between Kyp’s shot and Jag’s grew until it averaged nearly half a standard second. Jaina felt she’d achieved a slight measure of victory. At least Jag couldn’t remain confident in his ability to anticipate her thinking. But the gap between Jaina’s firing time and Kyp’s remained about the same.

“I have an idea on that,” Jag said. “About your Force coordination.”

Jaina almost laughed. “Jag, you don’t know anything about the Force. You’re as Force-blind as your uncle.”

“Yes, and my uncle would figure this out, too. I’m looking at your Force link as though it were some sort of neural interface between you and Kyp. Assuming it allows speed-of-light communication of impulses, we have your impulse to fire essentially triggering both your firing reflex and Kyp’s. Correct?”

“Maybe.”

“So perhaps the difference in your times is roughly the difference in your physical reaction times. You’re years younger than Kyp. Perhaps you should either hesitate—for as short a time as you can manage—once you’ve made the decision to fire, or you should let Kyp choose the targets and follow his lead.”

Jaina looked over her shoulder, through the canopy, to where Jag’s clawcraft floated beside and behind hers, and gave Jag a dubious look. “All right, sure. Let’s give it a try.”

On their next run, the difference between Jaina’s and Kyp’s shots was one one-hundredth of a second, still in Jaina’s favor.

Kyp whistled. “Good thinking, Fel. Let’s do this a few more times …” His voice trailed off.

Jaina felt it, too. She stared off into space, in the direction of the star Pyria.

“What is it?” Jag said.

“Something …” Jaina switched her comlink to fleet frequency and brought up her navigation program. She oriented her X-wing toward the source of her disquiet to give her a close reading on the course toward that distant point. “Twin Suns Leader to Control.”