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"I can do this all the way to the bridge, if you like," the woman said, her deep red lips curved into a mocking smile. "Or, you can save your energies for more productive resistance later."

"All right," Jaina croaked, sensing that this woman had dark Jedi powers she could not match-at least not yet.

When the Force bonds dropped away, the companions stood gasping and trembling. They looked at each other in angry humiliation, knowing they were beaten.

Jaina was the first to recover. Swallowing hard, she stood straight, put her chin in the air, and followed the woman in black. Her brother and Lowie fell in behind Jaina. "Who are you?" Jaina asked after a while.

The woman paused in midstep, as if considering, then answered. "My name is Tamith Kai. I am from a new order of Nightsisters."

"Nightsisters? You mean like on Dathomir?" Jacen asked.

Jaina remembered the stories their friend Tenel Ka told when it was her turn to scare them before they practiced Jedi calming techniques-stories of the horrible evil women who had once twisted civilization on her world.

Tamith Kai looked at Jacen, her wine-dark lips set in something between a scowl and a smile. "You've heard of us? Good. My planet is rich in Force-wielders, and the Empire has helped to bring us back. Now perhaps you'll realize you can't resist. Cooperation, on the other hand, will be rewarded."

"We won't cooperate with you," Jaina challenged.

"Yes, yes," Tamith Kai said, as if bored. "All in good time."

"Hey, where are you taking us?" Jacen asked, walking quickly to keep pace with his sister. Lowie strode behind them, grumbling and fumbling at his waist as if he actually missed Em Teedee.

"You'll see soon enough," the Nightsister said. "We are almost ready to leave hyperspace."

All four of them stepped onto a lift platform that carried them up a level and opened out onto the bridge of the fleeing ship. The single pilot sat with his back to them in a padded high-backed chair, hunched over the controls. Ahead, through the bridge viewports Jaina could see the swirling colors of hyperspace.

The pilot reached out with his right hand and grabbed a lever as a countdown trickled to zero. Then he yanked the lever, and hyperspace suddenly unfolded, washing away into the star-studded darkness of normal space.

"We're near the Core Systems," Jaina said immediately, looking out at the rich starfields and the streamers of interstellar gas clotted together near the center of the galaxy.

The crowded Core Systems were the last bastions of Imperial power; not even New Republic forces had been able to flush them out completely. But they had arrived nowhere close to any system. They found themselves merely hanging, out in the middle of the star-strewn blackness.

"We have reached our destination, Tamith Kai," the pilot said, swiveling in his tall chair.

Jama's heart leaped as she recognized the weary, hard-bitten face and iron-gray hair of the former TIE pilot who had been stranded on Yavin 4

for so many years.

"Qorl!" Jacen exclaimed.

Lowie roared in anger.

Qorl had attacked them in the jungles when the young Jedi Knights had found his crashed TIE fighter and tried to fix it. The Imperial pilot had shot at Lowie and Tenel Ka, who had managed to escape into the undergrowth, but Qorl had taken Jacen and Jaina prisoner.

"Greetings, young friends. I never did thank you for fixing my ship and allowing me to return to my Empire."

"You betrayed us!" Jaina cried, feeling a surge of anger toward the brainwashed man. While being held captive, the twins had befriended Qorl, exchanging stories with him around the campfire. Jaina had felt sure the TIE pilot was softening, realizing that the ways of the Empire were filled with lies. But in the end, Qorl's military conditioning had been too strong.

"I returned as any soldier would and gave my report," Qorl said in a dull voice. "These people accepted me and... reindoctrinated me. I told them of your existence-powerful young Jedi Knights