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While his sister continued her careful excavation, Jacen went to look at a series of small holes no wider than his leg punched into the surface of the asteroid. He ducked down, shining his helmet beacon into one of the deep round craters.

When his light gleamed on an open mouth and set of sharp teeth, he stumbled backward with a panicked cry. 'Blaster bolts!"

Just then, something lunged out-long and snakelike, with a body like a fat worm and a mouth that held much more than its share of teeth.

In the low gravity Jacen's quick reaction sent him tumbling backward, end over end. When he finally righted himself, he saw a larval space slug still thrashing and snapping for victims, rooted inside its little crater tunnel.

"Friend Jacen, are you all right?" Tenel Ka had bounded over immediately upon hearing his outcry through their helmet comm systems.

"Just surprised, that's all." He gestured with a gloved hand toward the writhing space slug. "I didn't expect anything alive out here-we're in open space and hard vacuum."

Jaina came over, laughing more with relief that her brother was safe than from any outright mirth.

Jacen took a deep breath. 'Dad told us that when he and Mom were in the Hoth asteroid belt, what they thought was a cave turned out to be the gullet of a huge space slug. Those creatures are rare, thoughI've never seen one before. Especially not a baby."

Curious, he crept forward to look at the specimen as it withdrew slowly back into its hole. "This must be a young one. They feed on metal, I think, so this core asteroid would be a good place to raise larvae."

Tenel Ka agreed gruffly. "The asteroid would provide nourishment for a very long time."

As Jacen bent closer, his light startled the young space slug, and it lunged out again, snapping its teeth. The creature seemed blind, unable to locate its exact target. Jacen backed off. "I guess it doesn't want to be disturbed," he said dejectedly.

Jaina returned to her work and a few moments later lifted out a beautiful solid chunk. The heavy metallic prize glittered and shone in the soft light. The lightsaber cutting had given it polished sides and clean edges, so that the metal looked like a bright faceted gem.

'All right, we've got what we came for," she said, delight and excitement pouring through her voice. 'We promised Dad we'd head right home."

The young Jedi Knights followed her back to the Rock Dragon, and Jacen cast one brief glance toward where the space slug had gone back to its lair.

Inside the ship again, their suits removed, Jacen powered up the comm syz,term to send a message to Yavin 4. Raynar answered the signal, apparently assigned to communication duties again at the Jedi academy.

"Hey, Raynar," Jacen said, "we just wanted to report in."

"Good. Han Solo's been in here a dozen times, waiting to hear from you,"

Raynar said. "He's getting anxious."

Jacen laughed. "You can tell Dad that we found what we wanted. Our mission is a complete success."

"I'll tell him that,' the young man from Alderaan said. "You're being very mysterious."

"Well, we are on sort of a secret mission, you know," Jacen said with a grin. He signed off and sat back in his chair as the others fastened their crash webbing and Jaina powered up the Rock Dragon's engines.

Time to go back to Yavin 4, before anything went wrong....

WHILE JAINA SAT back, polishing and admiring the chunk of metal she had taken from Alderaan's core, Lowbacca took the pilot's seat of the Rock Dragon, piloting them through the hazards of the asteroid belt.

"Just take us home, Lowie,' Jaina said.

"I can't wait until we give this to Mom. I think it'll be the best present we've ever given her.". The young Wookiee growled happily, and Em Teedee translated. "Master @wbacca comments that the piloting task you requested is certainly within his capabilities and he is ready and willing to perform it." Jaina laughed. "I thought he just said, 'Okay.""

Em Teedee gave a miffed bleep.

Lowbaccatested the shivs systems, scanning the Hapan controls as he powered up the engines. Carefully, he released the