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“Picnickers,” Luke offered.

“There’s a thought.”

Luke led Mara and Corran back toward the Yuuzhan Vong base. A moment later, three more Twin Suns settled into formation with them.

“Good to see you,” Luke said. “Split off and approach the base from the far side so that you reach the edge of the canopy half a second after we do. They’re only expecting three of us. Ready, break.”

The ground here was soft; they had the hole dug and three engineers’ worth of explosives loaded into it in less than a standard minute. The eight of them crawled away from the hole and toward the Record Time.

The Twi’lek woman wasn’t crawling. She was flat on her back toward the rear of the column, fiddling with a remote detonator, while Lando’s droid dragged her by the feet. The droid kept up sustained fire aimed behind them, toward the rakamat and the main engagement area of the infantry fight.

Lando, elbow-crawling at the head of the column, heard the roar of the returning X-wings. He knew their attacks on the beast were futile, but was grateful for their strafing runs, which had kept him and this unit from falling under constant fire.

Three X-wings flashed by from the right, unloading laserfire on the beast’s left side. The voids flicked around into the path of the attacks, and Lando thought he saw the snubfighters’ red laser beams actually bend as they entered the voids.

Then three X-wings flashed by from the left, pouring laserfire into the beast’s right side. The six snubfighters crossed like a demonstration of trick flying and disappeared beyond the jungle canopy.

Lando saw yorik coral superheat and explode, propelled out as the flesh beneath the coral was instantly transformed into steam.

Blackish blood poured down the beast’s right flank. The creature roared, a noise like the offspring of a ground-quake and distant thunder, and poured plasma fire after the six snubfighters. But still it came on, toward them, toward the Record Time.

“Got it,” the Twi’lek engineer said.

“Get ready,” Lando said. “We’ll try to time it to the X-wings’ next pass if they’re back in time.”

The woman began elbow-crawling, freeing Lando’s droid.

Lando suddenly found two stumps in the way before him. He looked up. They weren’t stumps. They were the legs of a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, encased in vonduun crab armor. The warrior’s amphistaff was straight as a spear, its tapered tail pointed right at Lando’s back; the warrior held it up, ready to plunge.

The point came down and a dark shape shielded Lando from it, from the dazzling display of plasma and laser energy overhead. Lando heard a human scream, and abruptly the Yuuzhan Vong warrior was flat on the grass, his feet kicking centimeters from Lando’s nose. One of the soldiers was atop him, but was already going limp, the amphistaff driven clear through his back.

From his position, Lando had a view under the skirt plates of the Yuuzhan Vong warrior’s armor. As the warrior tossed aside the soldier’s body, Lando angled his blaster rifle in and fired, hitting the warrior where neither leg armor nor skirt armor protected. This time it was the Yuuzhan Vong who cried out in pain. The warrior jerked and writhed, agony twisting his body apparently beyond the level that even a Yuuzhan Vong could endure.

Lando’s bodyguard droid landed between Lando and the warrior. It kicked out against the amphistaff. Its blow hurled the weapon away, though the amphistaff, pliant again, bit the droid; the attack, faster than Lando’s eye could follow, did not penetrate the droid’s armor and would not have damaged the droid if it had. The amphistaff flew meters away.

The droid stood over the warrior, aimed carefully, and began firing.

Lando twisted around. The giant creature behind them, still pouring blood, had picked up speed. Knowing it was injured, perhaps dying, it was charging the Record Time.

The Twi’lek engineer had the detonator in her hand, her thumb over the button.

“Wait,” Lando said.

She turned an anguished expression