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But Kyp was still in contact with her, still connected through the Force. She heard him across the comm unit: “No, Jaina. If you go back, you’ve just thrown away what he did for you. You can’t be captured.”

“I know,” she said. Her voice sounded weak to her. She watched as the closest of the coralskippers came within firing range of Jag. He resumed his evasive flying; the little blip representing him on the sensor board blurred as the sensors tried to keep up with his movements.

“Let’s go,” Kyp said. His voice was solemn, and she could feel that his regret was genuine.

“Yes,” she said. “Twin Suns, set course for Borleias, jump when ready. Let the planet’s mass drag you out of hyperspace.” She saw Twin Suns Eleven jump almost immediately; Tilath must have had the course already plotted.

Over the next few moments, the others jumped, all but her and Kyp, while on the sensor screen Jag’s blip became surrounded by an increasingly thick screen of red dots.

“I’m waiting for you,” Jaina said. She could barely hear her own voice. There seemed to be a haze over her eyes, a cloud of white noise in her ears.

“I’m waiting for you,” Kyp said.

“Together, then.” Jaina took a deep breath, watching the ever-tightening web of coralskippers around Jag. They were channeling him, leaving the screen lighter in one direction, and he was inexorably moving toward the other interdictor. “On three. One, two, three, jump.”

Neither X-wing jumped.

“Blast it, Kyp, go home.” Jaina yanked on her yoke, sending her X-wing in the tightest turn she could manage back toward the combat. Back toward the stream of coralskippers pursuing her. And she found, in that moment, that the haze over her eyes and white noise in her ears disappeared.

“Jaina, no.” Kyp stayed with her. “You can’t do this. You can’t save him. You can only kill yourself.”

“Shut up.” He wasn’t dead. Jag was still flying, he still had a trigger under his finger, he wouldn’t die. She would get there. She would save him.

The first of her pursuers began firing. They weren’t firing plasma cannons. Space around her was suddenly riddled with grutchins, the burrowing insects that could disable a craft. She twitched her yoke, allowing the Force to guide her evasive maneuvers, and switched discretionary power to her forward shields. So far, there were none of the distinctive ping noises of a grutchin hit.

“Jaina, this is Colonel Celchu. This transmission is scrambled and coming through your astromech. General Antilles is issuing a direct order. Do not reenter the combat zone. Return to base. Do you understand?”

Part of her did. Part of her knew that Wedge Antilles had concluded that Jag Fel was lost, and was not willing to exploit even the faint chance Jaina Solo offered to save his own nephew. That’s how bad it looked.

“Don’t tell me the odds,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. She flashed past the first squadron of pursuers. They looped wide to turn in her wake without getting in the way of the second squadron. Now grutchins were coming at her from two directions.

“I didn’t tell you the odds.” For once, Tycho sounded confused.

“Good.”

Kyp hung doggedly at Jaina’s side, firing as constantly as his lasers would recycle. Jaina wasn’t firing. Her mind was somewhere else, not even acknowledging the coralskippers as threats, only her reflexes keeping the grutchins off her. Kyp nailed one oncoming coralskipper, his lasers hitting the dovin basal and then shearing through into the skip’s main body. He checked his sensor board. Only forty-nine skips and one interdictor to go.

Then it was forty-eight. The number on the board dropped and one little light near Jag’s blip winked out. But Jag was now awfully close to that interdictor.

Then the answer came to Kyp. “Jaina, I can save him, but I need your help.”

He felt a flicker from her. “How? ” she asked.

“Aim straight in for the other interdictor’s bow. Go ahead and punch through the cloud around Jag to give him some relief. And protect me. I’m going to be too busy to shoot.”

“Kyp, the shadow bomb thing can’t work again. They’ll be looking