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Vellar did in fact smile. “I got through to the Chains of Justice. Group Three had not yet entered hyperspace at Vahaba. The entire Group Three is en route to us now.”

Zsinj beamed at him. “We might not only survive—we may have just won this engagement, Captain. Thank you.”

Mon Remonda and the New Republic fleet dropped out of hyperspace well within the Selaggis system.

“Contact,” announced the sensor operator. “Multiple contacts moving well ahead of us. Their course takes them toward Selaggis Six.”

“Show me,” Solo said.

The holoimage brought up to hang before Solo’s chair jerked and flickered, the result of the extreme visual enhancement needed to offer any detail at this range. It showed a gradually lengthening line of ships headed toward a distinct yellow-orange world. The closest ships, those at the rear of the formation, were two Star Destroyers—one Imperial, one Victory—and a smaller vessel. Like Carrack-class cruisers, the small ship looked like a thick bar with thickened areas fore and aft, but Solo recognized it as a Lancer-class frigate. Smaller than Carracks, the Lancers were configured to repel starfighter squadrons. Stretching out ahead of these vessels were two Dreadnaughts and, in front, a smaller craft that would have been difficult to identify if seen from an above angle, where it would look like a simple triangle. But Mon Remonda’s position was slightly below the flight path of the outbound ships, and from this perspective Solo could see the teardrop-shaped command pod hanging from the bow, the boxy starfighter bay depending from the stern. It was a Quasar Fire-class starfighter transport. Solo had one in his own fleet.

Solo ran the numbers through his head. It was a habit he’d gotten into as a general; the Corellian habit of ignoring odds until one crashed right into them was inappropriate for an officer who had lives depending on his decisions.

“If they join up with Iron Fist, they will outgun us,” Captain Onoma said, confirming Solo’s calculations.

“But not by an impossible amount,” Solo said. “We’ll just have to be better than they are.”

The world the enemy forces approached, Solo knew, was a gas giant, a beautiful yellow-orange thing whose atmosphere was characterized by constant storm activity. The storms unceasingly changed the planet’s patterns of swirls and lines of color, so that each new day offered variations in the worldscape. It must have been an ever-changing work of art for the colonists on one of the world’s moons. Selaggis Six also had a heavy debris ring thought to have been another moon at one time.

Solo nodded. “Selaggis Six is the perfect place for Zsinj to make a stand. He can use the terrain to his advantage. An asteroid ring to hide in, a planetary atmosphere he might even be able to bring Iron Fist into for cover. That’s our destination, Captain. Follow that group.”

• • •

Leaving Tonin behind, Lara stepped out of the turbolift onto a deck of Iron Fist that wasn’t supposed to exist.

She’d only seen it through holocam recordings taken by utility droids. It didn’t seem quite as cavernous from a human perspective.

Ahead was a long, dimly lit corridor. To the right was a bank of viewports showing more brightly lit chambers.

The first chamber she passed was the one she thought of as the zoo. In it were a couple of monitoring consoles and an entire wall of metal and transparisteel cages, stacked three high, the upper ones accessed by a sort of portable turbolift—a metal floor in an open-air upright frame. Most of the cages still seemed to be full. Two human men were seated at a desk, one typing away on a large terminal. Neither noticed Lara. She wasn’t surprised; inside the more brightly lit room, the transparisteel of the viewport would be very reflective. If they did see her, all they’d see was a naval officer walking at a slow, measured rate.

It was making her crazy, having to pace herself now that she was within sight of humans and holocams again—though Tonin’s measures should have rendered those holocams ineffective. She wanted to dash