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“Good to see you, too, Gavin.”

Asyr, who was standing next to Nawara and Rhysati, frowned. “Gavin?”

“Long story.” Gavin looked at the others gathered beside the door. Between them, Shiel and Ooryl supported the Devaronian, Dmaynel Kiph. His black blood oozed like oil from a wound in his right thigh. Everyone else looked fine. “Where’s Aril?”

Nawara shook his head. “Don’t know.”

Corran glanced at the people running from the warehouse. “She’s small. We could have missed her.”

Rhysati nodded. “There have been a lot of Sullustans running away.”

Gavin brandished his gun. “We can’t leave her.”

Another explosion rumbled from within the warehouse. Corran shied away from the opening. “The Fortress is moving up. We can’t go back in.”

Bits of masonry debris pitter-patted over Gavin’s coat and stung his face. He wanted to go diving back into the fight, but his belly began to throb where he had previously been gut-shot by a stormtrooper and that made him hesitate. Guilt immediately assailed him because he had been the cause for the Rogues to be in the warehouse. Part of him knew the Imperial operation had to have been one that was planned long before he was dragged down for a trial, but logic couldn’t defeat the fear he felt for Aril and the others inside.

Two speeder bikes shot back out of the warehouse, followed by a third and then a fourth. After them came two Imperial stormtroopers on speeder bikes of their own. The lead Imp bike fired a shot from its laser cannon and melted half the control surfaces on a Starhawk. The speeder bike went down hard, spilling the rider to the ground. The second bike swooped low toward the downed driver.

More smoothly than Gavin would have thought possible, Corran’s blaster pistol came up and around. He snapped off three quick shots. One missed the second Imp speeder, but the other two hit and boosted the driver up out of the saddle. The armored figure fell ten meters to the ferrocrete street, rolling up in a lifeless heap next to his prey. The speeder bike glided to a hover in midair above him, out of reach and benign.

Nawara pointed up as a half-dozen stormtroopers on speeder bikes dove down through the alley. “Reinforcements, let’s move.”

Asyr pointed to a doorway set flush with a wall off to the right. “This way.”

Corran waved them on, then darted out and ran toward the downed bike driver. Gavin followed him, directing a scattered pattern of covering fire back into the warehouse. He reached the rider a moment after Corran did and realized the rider was a woman. She tugged her helmet off, spilling brown hair over her shoulders. A blue forelock had been pasted to her forehead by sweat.

“Leave me alone!” she snarled at Corran.

“No way, Inyri.” Corran grabbed her by the shoulder of her jacket to pull her along, but just ended up keeping her off the ground when her step faltered.

“My knee,” she gasped, “I can’t.”

Gavin handed Corran his blaster, then swept her up in his arms. “Let’s go.”

Inyri struggled against Gavin for a moment, then hung on as stormtroopers started shooting at them from all directions. The Rogues who had gone over to the doorway Asyr had pointed out returned fire on the stormtroopers emerging from the warehouse, momentarily driving them back. Corran, with a blaster in each hand, triggered a flurry of shots at the first speeder bike as it came around to make a pass at them. He didn’t hit the pilot, but he made the man shy off and slam his speeder into the alley wall.

The speeder exploded, spilling fire down the wall and into the alley. It sparked a momentary lull in the shooting that Gavin used to complete his run to the doorway. He got inside quickly and stumbled forward, but kept his feet. The backlight of blaster fire from the other Rogues provided him with enough light to find his way a bit deeper into what appeared to be a cluttered stockroom of some sort. Despite the smoke in the air, Gavin detected a heavy chemical scent.

Up ahead Asyr cracked a door open, letting a sliver of dim yellow light slice through the gloom. Janitorial supplies filled the shelves