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“You did that?” Cole asked, even though it came through his immobile mouth sounding like “eww ii aa?”

“Your friend Skywalker frowns on such use of the Force, but I find it helpful. Now cooperate with me, Fardreamer, and I’ll let you go.”

“Can’t,” Cole said. It came out as “aae.” He couldn’t even talk, couldn’t even defend himself.

“I’ll leave you to Eve for the time being. If at any time you change your mind about your story, just let her know. She’ll contact me.”

He stepped over Cole and walked down the hallway. Little tremors ran through Cole’s body. He had no control at all. Eve stepped over him, bent down, and gripped his ankle in her claw. He couldn’t even kick at her.

She dragged him by the leg back into the torture chamber. Then she lifted him as if he weighed nothing and threw him on a tilted, ribbed piece of metal. It reclined slightly. Above him were dozens of drills, saws, and welders. He recognized all of them, and knew most of them were built for metal equipment.

Eve seemed to smile as she bent over him. “This is your last chance, human.”

But his mouth didn’t work. He couldn’t confess, even if he wanted to.

Luke rested for a moment beside Leia. A lesser man would have been dead by now. She was amazed that he could keep going.

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

“I know.” He spoke softly.

But he seemed to be waiting for something. She hoped that something wasn’t Kueller.

She put her arm around Luke’s waist, careful to avoid the wounds on his back, and pulled him to his feet. Then she slung his arm over her shoulder, taking his weight off his ankle, and together they walked toward the hangar.

Just as a familiar double tone warned her that the Alderaan’s self-destruct had just kicked in.

“We’ve got trouble,” she whispered.

Luke gathered strength from somewhere and stood without her help. He pulled out two blasters. So did she. Then she crept in the shadows toward her ship.

A triple tone sounded. When the ship reached five tones, it would explode. Her throat was dry. The Alderaan was their only way off this empty husk of a planet.

She peered into the hangar, and saw no one. Footprints obscured her own near the Alderaan, half a dozen footprints, maybe more. A blaster scorch on the door told her what had happened.

Where were they now?

“You see anyone, Luke?”

He shook his head. He looked distracted, as if he were hearing faraway music. She had seen that look before, when he had lost his hand below Cloud City. She had never known if the look meant that he was in great pain or if it came when he was listening to something inside his head.

That time he had been feeling Vader’s presence.

Did he feel Kueller now?

Four tones chimed from the Alderaan. It was now or never. Either she saved her ship or she saved herself.

She ran into the bay, both blasters out, and launched herself at the Alderaan. Her ship scanned her handprint, her retina, and her voice as she spoke the internal code. The door swung open just as the five-tone chime began.

And stopped.

Her heart was pounding. No one had shot at her. Whoever had disturbed the Alderaan had touched it, and left when the auto-destruct had started.

She opened the internal control panel near the door and shut off the auto-destruct.

Then she leaned her head out the door, and shouted, “Luke!”

But he didn’t respond. She couldn’t see him in the shadows in the bay.

“Luke! Now!”

Still nothing. Had he collapsed out there?

She would have to go back and get him.

She stepped out the door when she heard the hiss of a lightsaber. She tapped her belt. She wore hers. Luke hadn’t been wearing one.

Her heart pounded harder. There was only one other person adept in the Force on Almania.

Kueller.

Forty-eight

Leia’s message said that she was taking the Alderaan to Almania, and then later she added a note about Wedge and the fleet. But try as he might, Han couldn’t locate the Alderaan in the swarm of fighting ships not far from him. He didn’t want to think about all the