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"I have waited here, and waited, as ordered. No one has come to rescue me."

"But," Jaina said, "all those years! This place has been abandoned for quite some time, but people have been at the Jedi academy for eleven years now. Why haven't you turned yourself in? Don't you realize what's happened in the galaxy since you crashed?"

"Surrender is betrayal!" Qorl snapped, glaring at her as anger flickered across his weathered face.

"But we're not lying," Jacen said. "The war is over. There is no more Empire." He took a deep breath and then plunged ahead. "Darth Vader is dead. The Emperor is dead. The New Republic now rules. Only a few remnants of old Imperial holdouts are still buried in the Core Systems at the center of the galaxy."

"I don't believe you," Qorl said flatly.

"If you take us back to the Jedi academy we can prove it. We can show you everything," Jaina said. "Wouldn't you like to go home? Wouldn't you like to be free of this place? We could get your arm treated."

Qorl held up his glove and stared at it. "I used my medi-kit," he said.

"I tended it as best I could. It is good enough, although there was much pain . . . for a long time."

"But we've got Jedi healers!" Jaina said. "We've got medical droids. You could be happy again. Why stay here? There's nothing to betray: there is no more Empire."

"Be quiet," Qorl said. "The Empire will always rule. The Emperor is invincible."

"The Emperor is dead," Jacen said.

"The Empire itself can never die," Qorl insisted.

"But if you won't let us take you back to get help, then what do you want?" Jaina asked.

Jacen nodded, chiming in. "What are you trying to accomplish?"

"What can we do for you, Qorl?"

The TIE pilot turned away from the campfire to stare at them. His haggard, weather-beaten face held new power and obsession, springing from deep within his mind.

"You will finish repairs to my ship," he said. "And then I shall fly away from this prison moon. Ill return to the Empire as a glorious hero of war. Surrender is betrayal-and I never surrendered."

"And what if we won't help you?" Jacen said with all the bravado he could manage.

Jaina instantly wanted to kick him for provoking the TIE pilot.

Qorl looked at the young boy, his face coldly expressionless again. "Then you are expendable," he said.

15

It took Em Teedee several moments to recalibrate his sensors after he dropped from Lowbacca's fiber-belt. He had fallen, bounc ing, crashing, and bonking through the canopy until he finally came to rest on a dense mat of leafy vines that tied together the lower branches.

"Master Lowbacca, come back!" he said, amplifying his voice circuits to their maximum volume levels. "Don't leave me! Oh, dear. I knew that was a bad idea."

He adjusted his optical sensors so he could see better in the dim light of the lower levels. He was surrounded by thickets that were nearly inaccessible to anyone as large as even a young Wookiee.

"Help! Help me!" Em Teedee shouted again. He decided it would be most effective to continue shouting every forty-five seconds, because he calculated that was the minimum amount of time necessary for anyone nearby to come within earshot.

Unable to move and scout out his location, Em Teedee's best guess was that he was still twenty meters above the ground. He hoped that no slight jarring of the branches would cause him to break free and tumble down again. If he fell that far to the ground, he might strike one of the rough lava outcrop-pings and split open his outer casing. With his circuits spilled across the jungle floor, no one would ever be able to put him back together again in the proper fashion. His circuits buzzed at the thought.

Forty-five seconds had passed. He called out again for help, then waited.

He shouted repeatedly for the next hour and eleven minutes, hoping desperately to attract some sort of attention, someone to come rescue him.

But when he finally did attract a curious investigator, Em Teedee wished he had kept his vocal circuits switched