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"In a heartbeat Anakin had scrambled over the makeshift furnishings to where Threepio stood berating himself. Leia and the guards rushed over to join him.

Jacen and Tenel Ka lay crumpled on the floor, side by side, unconscious..

. or perhaps dead.

Quickly unstrapping the medkit, Leia pulled out a mini-diagnosticator and examined the two young Jedi Knights. "It's all right," she said. "They're alive-just knocked out." She ran her cool palm over Jacen's forehead, brushing aside his tousled hair.

Anakin and Leia slowly nursed the two back to consciousness. Jacen came around first, and Anakin could tell from the look in his brother's eyes that the news was grim.

"Are you all right?" Anakin asked. He shifted gears as he began to put the pieces of a puzzle together in his mind.

Jacen swallowed hard. "Tenel Ka?" he asked, his voice shaky.

"... is just fine," Leia said reassuringly. "Looks like you two got stunned. What happened?"

Jacen shivered, as though the room had suddenly become colder. "Tamith Kai was here-the Nightsister from the Shadow Academy - - along with two of her friends." His brandy-brown eyes squeezed shut, as if he had just remembered something too painful to bear. He groaned. "And they've got Zekk! I think... I think he's gone over to the dark side."

Anakin's breath could not have come out in a greater rush if a bantha had just kicked him in the stomach.

"They're going to train him to be a Jedi," Jacen continued. "A Dark Jedi.

"

Tenel Ka grunted and sat up. "This is a fact."

"There were other kids here, too," Jacen said. "The Lost Ones. I think the Nightsisters took them all-to the Shadow Academy."

Leia shook her head, her dark eyes flashing. "I think it's about time we did something decisive about that Second Imperium!" she said. "That's twice now they've hurt my children."

"Yes, indeed, Mistress Leia! That's all well and good, but we simply must get back home where it's safe," Threepio said in alarm. "Mistress Tenel Ka, are you capable of walking?"

Her granite-gray eyes narrowed, as if she suspected a veiled insult. "l could carry you, if I had to."

Jacen chuckled, then groaned as he held his aching head. "Yeah, I think she's just fine.

20

UP ON THE mirror station, Jaina worked with Lowie and Chewbacca to patch up as many of the worn-out subsystems as they could manage.

After scraping together the few spare components they could find, they added their own ingenuity to come up with alternative solutions. Although it was impossible for them to program the food synthesizers to create anything remotely resembling gourmet fare, Lowie and Chewbacca did manage to produce a passable midday meal.

Jaina completed the task of reconnecting the communications systems, making it possible to send brief messages, though the transmissions were still plagued with bursts of static. Chewbacca set to work inspecting the life-support systems, the environmental controls, and the station heaters.

Peckhum watched, performing the few duties expected of him on his monitoring shift. He bubbled over with gratitude, emphasizing again and again how much he appreciated all the effort Jaina, Lowie, and Chewbacca were putting in on his behalf. "If I had waited for the New Republic to get around to fixing these things, Zekk would have been an old man by the time-" Peckhum broke off with a sad shake of his head.

With the major and obvious repairs completed, the young Jedi Knights had little to do while Chewbacca continued poking around. Lowbacca devoted his energies to finishing the orbital-debris plotting that he and Jaina had volunteered to do. Jaina had helped Lowie with the task, but tracking thousands of pieces of debris was just too daunting for her at the moment. Lowie, on the other hand, had extreme patience for a Wookiee, especially around computers. He diligently plotted one blip after another, noting the more dangerous space lanes in the heavily traveled orbits around the capital world.

Jaina glanced at Lowie's three-dimensional map, but