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Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Anja worked closer to the Elfa. When the last of the frozen jaws were sheared away, the small craft settled slightly and drifted loose. Jacen felt the cold growing more and more intense all around his body. His arms and legs seemed heavy. Too heavy.

Tenel Ka watched him with a look of concern. They were both good swimmers. Together they had spent many days swimming in the river on Yavin 4. But this was cold, infinitely colder....

Jacen forced his hand to give a thumbs-up sign, and Tenel Ka nodded.

Together they swam back toward the minisub's force-field hatch.

Jacen waved for Anja, who floated in place close to the Elfa holding her acid-yellow lightsaber. She signaled that she would be behind them in a moment. Jacen and Tenel Ka rapidly stroked toward the hatch, toward warmth.

Up ahead, Cilghal and Zekk had nearly finished with their labors as well.

Anja had worked as hard as she could manage. She had no strength in the Force, and her only special abilities with a lightsaber had come from having her body pumped up with andris spice. She was free of that addiction now, however. She would never use the spice again... but that also meant she would never feel the same rush again, the energy she had once considered a part of her strength.

The lightsaber in her hand was a fraud, nothing more than an antique she had purchased from a peddler who specialized in Jedi artifacts.

Anja knew how hard Zekk had worked to build his own sleek and simple weapon-and its hilt looked nothing like the heavy,ornate design of her energy blade.

However, Zekk's lightsaber was real. He had earned his, and he knew how to use it. The Force guided him. Anja's didn't belong to her, no matter what she had paid for it. It was a Jedi weapon, and she was not-nor would she ever be-a Jedi. Perhaps the lightsaber was itself a symbol of her addiction-her willingness to rely on something that was not a part of her.

Caught up in her restless thoughts, she swam around the fin of the minisub and saw something trapped between two struts in the support casing that held the rudder in place: a single remaining vial of andris spice, glittering and preserved in the frigid water. It must have caught there when they broke open the containers hidden under the ice caps, or when the sea monster had attacked them and consumed the rest of the stash.

As if drawn by a magnet, Anja swam forward and plucked out the vial.

It was pure andris.

Anja hesitated. She could take it... treat herself to one last dose.

She felt the yearning return inside her, a longing for that familiar surge of energy that made her feel so intensely alive. She knew it was more mental than physical. If she succumbed now, if she kept this dose for herself... it would be like voluntarily placing her hands into a set of stun-cuffs. She might as well lock herself up and become a prisoner of her own addiction once more.

But Anja didn't want that. She didn't want it ever again.

She let the vial drift out of her hand. The small object floated there in front of her, taunting her, daring her to change her mind.

Anja locked her acid-yellow lightsaber ON and, with an effort, swept down, slicing through the offensive vial. It disintegrated in a puff of scared materials.

Then, as she stared down at the Jedi relic in her grasp, Anja knew she could never use it again. Deep inside, she felt a calm finality at this knowledge.

Anja's cold fingers released their grip on the hilt and let the lightsaber drift away. Then, with a feeling of satisfaction, Anja swam back to the warmth and companionship that waited for her aboard the minisub.

Czethros was on the run. He could see no way out of his situation.

If he managed to escape Kessel and elude the young Jedi Knights and Nien Nunb's security team, he might be even worse off... because then he would have to explain this failure to his brutal superiors in Black Sun.

Czethros was certain those people could think of much more imaginative punishments than any New Republic justice organization could.

Even his old nemesis, Han Solo, would