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“Wild Knights engaged.” Danni Quee’s voice rose in pitch. “We have two squadrons of coralskippers.”

“Same here, two squadrons.” The Blackmoon leader, Captain Reth, was calmer than Danni. “Standard incoming tactics.”

“Rogues have two complete squadrons incoming.” Then Gavin Darklighter’s voice took on a slightly amused tone. “Correction, two incomplete squadrons.”

Jaina frowned at her sensor board. Why weren’t the Yuuzhan Vong attacking her position? It didn’t make sense for them to attack three of four Starlancer positions. They should be attacking only one, to acquire a Starlancer pipefighter, or all four.

Then she saw it, a blip at the extreme range of her sensors. “Incoming enemies,” she said, “from this position. Twin Suns shield trios, form up on me.”

Han and Leia listened to the comm traffic from the Starlancer positions—when it wasn’t drowned out by the shrieks of amusement from the more distant portions of the Falcon, where novice Jedi practiced deflecting remote blasts, shooting down computer-generated targets with computer-generated laser blasts, and ran amok. Han and Leia could also hear C-3PO’s ineffective protests. “That should be enough distraction out there,” Leia said.

“I think so, too.” Han keyed his comlink. “Kam, Tionne, get them settled in and strapped down. We’re jumping out of here in one minute.” A moment later, he could hear the deeper tones of Kam Solusar addressing the boisterous passengers.

“Can I sit up here?”

Han and Leia turned to see Tarc standing at the opening into the cockpit. The boy looked uncertain, unhappy.

Leia said, “You don’t want to sit back there with the others? We won’t have much time to talk to you, honey.”

Tarc shook his head. “They’re better at everything than I am. Even Syal and Myri.”

Leia exchanged a look with Han. Han cleared his throat. “Sure, kid, strap into the seat behind mine. And cinch everything down tight.”

The two coralskipper squadrons came laser-straight toward the Twin Suns pilots. As Twin Suns broke again into four shield trios, the coralskippers broke into four units of six, one each to a shield trio.

“Standard procedures,” Jaina said, and angled toward one of the six coralskippers heading her way. She reached out for Kyp within the Force, found him and grabbed him as easily as catching a comrade’s hand, then waited for him to select a target.

He did. They fired together, Jag firing an almost undetectable fraction of a second later. Kyp’s lasers found the target coralskipper’s void; Jaina’s blasted through the bow, Jag’s through the pilot canopy. Then they hurtled past, the remaining five coralskippers turning in pursuit.

As she banked around for another pass, Jaina spared a glance for her sensor board. It showed all the coralskippers still engaged with the starfighters; the six skips on the second shield trio, the one with Piggy in it, had already been reduced to five, and the other two groups were intact. No one was maneuvering against the pipefighter, which was still pouring laser energy in three directions—no, one direction, as the two greater pipes shut down, leaving just the smaller pipe to fire energy at the center of the pipefighters’ long-distance formation.

A stream of plasma cannon projectiles poured past her X-wing, at a distance of fifty meters or so, close by starfighter battle standards but not close enough to worry her. These coralskipper pilots weren’t the best the Yuuzhan Vong had to offer; she could tell by the difficulty they had in maintaining pursuit of her squadron’s starfighters, by the fact that incoming fire was not drifting close enough to be terrifying. Even the comm chatter suggested the comparative lack of danger the squadrons were facing; the voices of Rogue Squadron and Blackmoon Squadron conveyed tension, but not as much as in more challenging exchanges.

Jaina led her shield trio around in a wide loop that kept them ahead of their pursuers but brought them to within firing range of the skips assaulting Twin Suns Seven through Nine. She gave Kyp a little confirming