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But the red guard had encountered his slaughtered companions outside and knew that Brakiss had seen all the video controls and holographic apparatus in the isolation chamber. The fourth guard, without hesitation, ran back the way he had come.

Brakiss realized with utter certainty that the glorious dream of a reborn Empire had already failed. His Dark Jedi had lost their battle down on Yavin 4. The Imperial fighters were being trounced-but he would not let this impostor, this traitor, escape alive. It would be Brakiss's final moment of vengeance.

With purposeful steps, Brakiss charged after the man. The red guard moved with astonishing speed, fleeing the restricted area and dashing down the empty corridors of the Shadow Academy. Brakiss ran, but the red guard knew exactly where he wanted to go. Exactly.

The last surviving Imperial guard reached the docking bay and dashed toward Brakiss's still-waiting high-speed shuttle.

Arriving at the docking bay door, Brakiss shouted, "Stop!" He held his lightsaber high, wishing he could use the Force to make the guard freeze in his tracks, to follow the command-but the charlatan did not hesitate.

He dove into the lone shuttle, raised it on its repulsorlifts, and punched the code to release the magnetic atmosphere containment field.

Brakiss simmered with rage. He wondered if he could get to the Shadow Academy's weapons systems and blow the guard to frozen shards in the vacuum of space. But it would be too late for him.

He felt completely alone on the Shadow Academy. An utter failure.

Everything he had tried had backfired on him. And this was the final insult: tricked by a... guard.

Unbidden, a memory came to Brakiss.

When the Shadow Academy had been constructed-ostensibly under the guidance of Emperor Palpatine-as a fail-safe mechanism, enormous quantities of linked explosives had been implanted through the station's structure. That way, if Palpatine ever felt threatened by these new and powerful Dark Jedi Knights, he could trigger the detonation and destroy the Shadow Academy, no matter where it was.

Brakiss stood alone in the hangar bay, watching the tiny shuttle streak farther and farther away. It occurred to him that since there was no reborn Emperor, then the four red guards themselves must have kept the secret destruct codes.

As the escape ship fled from the Shadow Academy and the Yavin system, the last surviving guard acknowledged to himself that the military forces he left behind would be defeated utterly. With the success of the Rebel counterattack, there would likely be no Imperial survivors of this day's battles.

The guard had to preserve his secret and maintain the illusion that he and his partners had so carefully constructed as a way to restore themselves to power. He could not afford to leave the Shadow Academy intact if he hoped to cover his tracks. With luck, he might find a position among the many criminal elements insidiously working at the fringes of the New Republic.

The red guard sent a brief signal, carefully coded. He transmitted a dreaded phrase, a string of impulses, that he had hoped never to use., Destruct.

As his tiny shuttle careened into hyperspace, the spiked ring of the Shadow Academy flowered into a fireball, an exploding blossom of flaming gases and debris.

AS HE PLODDED ahead, Zekk could barely see two meters in front of himself in the murk of Yavin 4's unfamiliar jungle. Dense underbrush tore at his hair and cape, and his breath came in ragged gasps. His ponytail had come entirely undone. Still Zekk pushed on. Occasionally he glanced back over his shoulder to see if any of Skywalker's Jedi trainees were pursuing him. He sensed no one following, but he couldn't be sure. Who knows? he thought. They might have light-side tricks he had never heard of, ways to keep him from sensing their presence.

He had seen many unexpected things today. Strange things. Horrible things. It hardly mattered that the winding path ahead was uncertain and difficult to see: he would have been blind to it anyway. His mind was partially numbed by the sights his