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Jaina snorted. "No it isn't. Think we may need to arrange for a complete brain wipe when we get you back to Yavin 4."

"Oh, dear me," Em Teedee said.

Jaina looked around, casting her gaze from one end of the silent corridor to the other. She rubbed her hands together and bit her lower lip, considering options. "All right, this is the plan." She pointed to one of the corridor terminals.

"Lowie," she said, "can you use that computer to slice into the main station controls? I need you to drop the Shadow Academy's cloaking device and also seal all the doors so that no one gets out of their quarters. No sense inviting trouble for ourselves."

Lowie made a sound of optimistic agreement.

"Lowbacca, you aren't capable of accomplishing all of that," Em Teedee said, "and I'm certain you know it." Lowie growled at him.

"If we can all get to the shuttle bay," Jaina continued, "I think I can pilot one of the ships out of here. I've trained in simulators for various craft, and you know I was ready to fly that TIE lighter before Qorl took it."

Lowie tapped the keyboard of the computer terminal with his long hairy fingers. He hunched low to stare at the screen, which was not mounted lor someone of Wookiee stature. Lowie called up the screens he needed, showing the status of the Shadow Academy's shuttle bay.

"Perfect," Jaina said. "A new ship just came in, still powered up and ready to go. We'll take that one, as soon as Lowie locks everyone in their rooms."

Lowbacca grunted in agreement and kept working, but he soon encountered an impenetrable wall of security passwords. He groaned in frustration.

"Well, there now, you see?" Em Teedee said. "I told you you couldn't do it by yourself."

Lowie growled, but Jaina brightened as an idea struck her. "He's right,"

she said. "But Em Teedee was reprogrammed by the Empire. Why not plug him into the main computer and let him get through for us?" She plucked the small translating droid from the clip at Lowbacca's waist and began opening Em Teedee's back access panel.

"I most certainly will not," Em Teedee said. "I simply couldn't. It would be disloyal to the Empire and completely inappropriate for me to-"

Lowie made a threatening sound, and Em Teedee fell silent.

Working rapidly, with nimble fingers, Jaina pulled wires, electrical leads, and input jacks from the droid's head case and plugged them into appropriate ports on the Shadow Academy's com puter terminal.

"Oh, my," Em Teedee said. "Ah, this is much better. I can see so many things! I feel as if my brain is full to overflowing. A wealth of information awaits me-"

"The passwords, Em Teedee," Jaina said, reaching toward the recalcitrant droid.

"Oh, dear me, yes. Of course-the passwords!" Em Teedee said hastily. "But I remind you, I really shouldn't."

"Just do it," Jaina snapped.

"Ah, yes, here it is. But don't blame me if the whole lot of stormtroopers comes after you."

The screen winked, displaying the files Lowbacca had been trying to access. Jacen and Jaina sighed with relief, and Lowie made a pleased sound. His ginger-furred fingers were a blur as he descended rapidly through menu after menu, finally penetrating all the way into the station computer's main core.

With two swift commands Lowie shut down the Shadow Academy's cloaking device. Then, with a resounding clunk that echoed throughout the station, he closed and sealed every door except those the three of them would need to escape. He yowled in triumph.

Belatedly, the station alarms went off, screeching and grating with a harsh, piercing sound, unpleasant as only Imperial engineers could make it.

Lowie unplugged Em Teedee. "There, I tried to warn you," the silvery droid said. "But you wouldn't listen, would you?"

21

Brakiss sat contemplating in his dim office, long after the other workers had retired for the night. He reveled in the dramatic images on his walls: galactic disasters in progress, the fury of the universe unleashed like a storm around him-with Brakiss as its