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"Yes, indeed, Mistress Jaina." Zekk pressed his cheek against hers.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Raynar leaned over the navicomputer console and fine-tuned his lock on the tracer frequency.

"Looks stable this time," he reported. "The beacon hasn't cut - out or faded."

Zekk nodded.

"Good. Your father's not making any more hyperspace jumps right now.

Let's hope he decides to stay put for a while."

"Should I calculate a route to these coordinates?" Raynar asked.

Zekk had spent the past day filling in the gaps in Raynar's star-piloting education. The blond-haired boy now felt competent to set a course, calculate hyperspace jumps, and operate some of the weapons systems. Zekk had even let him fly the Lightning Rod for a couple of hours.

"Go ahead," Zekk said as he watched the boy enter the coordinates and plot the route. "You're not a half-bad copilot, you know?"

Raynar flushed with pride at Zekk's expression of confidence.

"Thanks for taking the time to teach me. I guess I've always been so used to people doing this stuff for me that I never thought to learn it for myself. Actually, I'm surprised Jaina didn't insist on coming along to be your copilot."

Zekk grimaced.

"She did." He paused for a long moment, as if considering how to say something unpleasant. "I told her I didn't want her along... because we might not make it back."

"We have to make it back," Raynar said with a stubborn optimism he hadn't known he possessed. "I promised Lusa. Besides," he added, flashing Zekk a calculating glance, "you don't expect Jaina to stay out of trouble just because you're not around, do you? Who'll come to her rescue?"

As Raynar leaned forward to fiddle with the navicomputer, he heard a soft chuckle from Zekk.

"You're right. We will have to make it back."

With that the the dark-haired young man flicked a few switches and plunged the Lightning Rod into hyperspace.

They traveled in companionable silence for a few hours. Finally, Zekk shook himself from a deep reverie.

"Speaking of convincing people not to come along, how did you talk your mother out of trying to come with us?"

"It was easier than I expected," Raynar said. "I told her that if a couple of Jedi couldn't bring my father back safely, then two Jedi and a businesswoman wouldn't be any more likely to succeed."

Zekk's eyebrows raised slightly when Raynar said two Jedi.

Raynar added, "She knows that if anything happened to my father and me, she's the only one who can run Bornaryn Trading. She has a responsibility to all of those clients and employees. Anyway, I think it made her a bit happier just to learn that my father had a good reason for running. He was trying to protect us all."

"And now we've got to protect him," Zekk said, looking down at the navicomputer. "Here we are."

He nodded to Raynar when the Lightning Rod dropped out of hyperspace.

Raynar's breathing sped up, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears. After a long, long search, he was finally going to see his father again.

"Uh-oh," Zekk said as normal space resolved into clear focus around them.

"Looks like your father's not just taking a break-he's got uninvited guests."

Raynar swallowed hard as he surveyed the scene before him. His father's ship was here, all right. But so were two other ships: Boba Fett's vessel Slave IV and another craft he didn't recognize. He flicked on the comm system.

"Dad, it's me, Raynar. Zekk and I are here to rescue you." A split second later, both bounty hunter ships fired on Borran Thul.

EVEN THOUGH HE recognized the Lightning Rod as the ship flown by ambitious young bounty hunter Zekk, Bonnan Thul decided he couldn't be choosy - not anymore. With both Boba Fett and the other bounty hunter Shakra firing on him, he either had to trust Zekk or sacrifice himself and blow up his ship. But Bonnan wasn't ready to self-destruct. Though it would obliterate the deadly knowledge he carried, the plague storehouse itself still existed; Nolaa Tarkona would keep searching for it. For him, the deciding