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Then why had she heeled over and goosed her thrusters, heading toward the bow of Mon Remonda? Her hands had acted without her brain being engaged.

Ahead, she could see one lonely A-wing making a torturous, slow turn back toward Mon Remonda, an obvious case of engine failure.

Obvious … but false. Adrenaline jolted through her as she saw through the A-wing’s moves, through the cockpit, through the skin and blood of its pilot to the mind beneath. “Mon Remonda,” she shouted, “bring your shields up. Polearm Two—”

“—is firing on you!”

Han Solo didn’t hesitate. “All shields up full!”

The A-wing fired. The transparisteel viewport giving him and the bridge crew an unparalleled view of space darkened as it tried to cope with the A-wing’s linked laser blasts. Then it shattered.

To Solo’s eye, the shards of viewport floated into the bridge, then immediately reversed direction and fled to space … vanguard for the atmosphere of the bridge.

• • •

“Four.”

Tal’dira reached up to flip the switch setting his S-foils to combat formation. They parted and his targeting computer came online.

“Three.”

Tal’dira heeled over so his weapons aimed straight at the rear end of Wedge’s X-wing. He began to swing his targeting brackets over toward the starfighter.

“Two …”

“Leader, break off!” Horn’s voice.

Tal’dira, jolted by the interruption, fired before his shot was completely lined up. Wedge, impossibly, was already reacting to Horn’s warning, breaking to starboard. But Tal’dira was rewarded by the sight of his lasers, cycling two by two, chewing through the port rear of Wedge’s X-wing, blowing one fuzial thrust engine completely off, punching deep into the rear fuselage.

The comm system was suddenly loud with many voices, most of them distressed. Wedge’s snubfighter continued banking to starboard and lost relative altitude, and Tycho was keeping pace with him as only the most experienced of wingmen could.

Tal’dira smiled. This would be a challenge. Good.

A blast of air shoved Solo from behind—shoved him nearly out of his commander’s chair and toward the hole in the forward viewport. He hung on to the chair but moved toward the hole anyway—the armature from which the chair was suspended swung inevitably in that direction. He could see, a few meters over, Captain Onoma in a similar predicament, being guided by his chair as though it were a mechanical throwing device toward the fatal exit from the bridge.

An alarm Klaxon sounded, loud even over the shrill whistle of air escaping the bridge. Solo saw the main door out of the chamber closing, an automatic safety measure.

When it closed, he’d be dead. The last of the bridge atmosphere would be out there in deep space, and he’d experience the joys of explosive decompression. So would every other crewman on the bridge.

He got one foot down to arrest the swing of his chair armature. Fortunately, artificial gravity was still working and he stopped his forward motion.

Then he drew his blaster and aimed for the control panel beside the main door. He fired, was rewarded with seeing the panel buckle inward under the blast—

The door stopped.

Now the bridge crew had a chance to make it to the door. But air was being vented from one of the ship’s main corridors. They had to get through the door past that wind blast …

And the A-wing was still out there.

“And you’re in a position to speak for the New Republic,” Dr. Gast said.

Nawara Ven, Twi’lek executive officer for Rogue Squadron, nodded. “I have been so authorized by the Inner Council. And as soon as we can come to some arrangement, you can be free of all this.” His gesture took in the tiny, plain stateroom that served as Gast’s cell. Ven sat on the room’s only chair, while Gast stretched out on the bed, leaning back against the wall.

“Well, you know what I want. A million credits, free of tax. Amnesty for all crimes, known and unknown, that I am alleged to have committed. And a new identity.”

“No,” Ven said. “We