Not until Han Solo's arrival, though, had he considered escape. Han showed that a small, determined group could break free of a prisoner's shackles. That they had stumbled into an even worse situation inside the Maw seemed irrelevant.

Piloting the stolen shuttle, Kyp had used his fledgling powers to steer them safely through the black hole cl.u.s.ter. In the years since the withered Vima-Da-Boda had taught him the fundamentals of her Jedi skills, Kyp had made little use of his own affinity for the Force.

He remembered Vima-Da-Boda's face as shrunken and leprous; and she had a habit of huddling in corners, of pulling shadows around herself as if to hide from immense prying eyes. The fallen Jedi had a guilty conscience that suffocated her like a blanket, but she had taken the time to teach Kyp a few things before the Imperials whisked her away. "You have great potential," she had told him in one of her last brief lessons.

Kyp had paid little attention to that, until now.

He stared fixedly at his untouched meal. Perhaps if he concentrated, focused his abilities on manipulating something, moving a tiny object, he could turn that skill into an escape.

Escape! The word rang through his heart, conjuring images of hope.

He was not certain how he did what he did. Sensing the best route through darkened spice tunnels seemed perfectly natural to him. When flying the shuttle through the fiery gas clouds, he had listened to the mysterious whispering voice directing him. Kyp turned and altered course, spinning and whirling whenever it seemed right.

But now that he needed to make use of the Force, he didn't know where to begin.

He fixed his gaze on the flimsy foil covering of the instant meal, trying to bend it. He pushed with his mind, picturing the thin metal twisting and crumpling into a ball--but nothing happened. Kyp wondered how much of Vima-Da-Boda's ramblings had been simple superst.i.tion and craziness.

His parents had no special sort of powers. On the Deyer colony of the Anoat system, they had both been outspoken local politicians. Upon hearing of a growing rebellion against the Emperor's rigid policies, they decided to work from within, speaking out against Palpatine to make him more moderate rather than overthrow him entirely. They resoundingly protested the destruction of Alderaan--but their efforts had only gotten the two of them and their sons Zeth and Kyp arrested.

Kyp remembered that night of terror, when the stormtroopers had melted down the door of the family dwelling even though it was unlocked.

The armed soldiers marched into the living quarters, kicked over the fragile fiber-grown furniture. The stormtrooper captain read an arrest order through the filtered speaker in his helmet, accusing Kyp's parents of treason; then the stormtroopers drew their blasters and stunned the two astonished adults. Kyp's older brother Zeth had tried to protect them, so the troopers stunned him as well.

Kyp, with tears streaming down his face, could only stare in disbelief at the three crumpled forms as the stormtroopers linked stun-cuffs around his wrists. He still couldn't imagine how they had considered him a threat, since he had been only eight years old at the time.

Kyp and his parents were taken to Kessel, while fourteen-year-old Zeth was hauled off as a brainwashed recruit to the Imperial military academy in Carida. They had never heard from Zeth again.

After little more than a year Kessel went into enormous internal upheavals, with prison revolts, the Imperials overthrown, slave lords taking over. Kyp's parents had died during the commotion, executed for being on the wrong side at the wrong moment. Kyp himself had survived by hiding, becoming silent and invisible. He had rotted in the darkness of the tunnels for eight years, and now he had escaped.

Only to be captured again.

Somehow, it seemed, the Imperials were always there to wreck his aspirations. On Deyer the stormtroopers had stolen him away from his home; on Kessel they had thrown him into the spice mines. Now that he and Han had finally escaped, the stormtroopers had clamped around him again.

Kyp's anger focused into a projectile, and he tried again to use his ability on the meal tray. He pushed, and a drop of sweat fell into his eyes, blurring his vision. Had the tray moved, jerked a little? He saw a small dent in the textured protein patty that formed the main course. Had he done that?

Perhaps anger was the key to focusing his latent energies.

He wished Vima-Da-Boda had spent more time instructing him down in the mines. He concentrated on the walls, on his narrow surroundings. He had to find some way of escaping Han had already proved that it could be done.

Kyp vowed that if he did manage to get away, he would find someone to teach him how to use these mysterious powers. He never wanted to be left so helpless again.

Looking at the delicate, birdlike Qwi Xux, Han somehow could not imagine her as the developer of the Death Star. But she worked willingly in the Maw Installation, and she had admitted her role in a matter-of-fact way.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" he finally said.

"This is what I do. This is what I'm best at." Qwi nodded her head absently, as if considering her answer. "Here I have a chance to grapple with the greatest mysteries of the cosmos, to solve problems that others have claimed are unsolvable. To see my wild ideas take shape. It's very thrilling."

Han still could not understand. "But how did this happen to you?

Why are you here?"

"Oh, that!" Qwi said, as if suddenly understanding the question.

"My home planet was Omwat, in the Outer Rim. Moff Tarkin took ten young Omwati children from various cities. He placed us in intense forced-education camps, trying to mold us into great designers and problem solvers. I was the best. I was the only one who made it through all the training. I was his prize, and he sent me here as a reward.

"At first I worked with Bevel Lemelisk to bring the Death Star to fruition. When we had the blueprints completed, Tarkin took Bevel away, leaving me to create newer and better concepts."

"Okay," Han said, "so I'll ask you again, why do you do this stuff?"

Qwi looked at him as if he had suddenly grown stupid. "It's the most interesting thing I can imagine. I have my pick of the challenges, and I'm usually successful. What more could I want?"

Han knew he wasn't getting through. "How can you enjoy working on things like this? It's horrible!"

Qwi took another step backward, looking baffled and hurt. "What do you mean by that? It's fascinating work, if you think about it. One of our concepts was to modify existing molecular furnace devices into autonomous "World Devastators" that could strip raw materials from a planet's surface, feed it into huge automated onboard factories, and produce useful machines. We're quite proud of that idea. We transmitted the proposal off to Tarkin shortly after he took Bevel with him." Her voice trailed off. "I wonder what ever happened to that idea."

Han blinked in astonishment. The terrifying fleet of World Devastators had attacked Admiral Ackbar's home planet, laying waste part of the beautiful water world before the juggernauts were destroyed. "The World Devastators have already been built," Han mumbled, "and put to very efficient use."

Qwi's face lit up. "Oh, that's wonderful!"

"No, it isn't!" he shouted into her face. She sprang back. "Don't you know what your inventions are used for? Do you have any idea?"

Qwi backed off, straightening up again defensively. "Yes, of course. The Death Star was to be used to break up dead planets to allow direct mining of the heavy metals trapped in the core. The World Devastators would be autonomous factories combing asteroids or sterile worlds to produce a wide range of items without polluting inhabited planets."

Han snorted and rolled his eyes. "If you believe that, you'll believe anything. Listen to their names! Death Star, World Devastator--that doesn't sound like something for peacetime economic development, does it?"

Qwi scowled and turned her back on it. "Oh, what difference does it make?"

"The Death Star's first target was the planet Alderaan--my wife's home world! It murdered billions of innocent people. The World Devastators were turned loose on the inhabited world of Calamari.

Hundreds of thousands of people died. Those efficient factories of yours manufactured TIE fighters and other weapons of destruction, nothing else."

"I don't believe you." Her voice did not sound confident.

"I was there! I flew through the rubble of Alderaan, I saw the devastation on Calamari. Didn't you read about it in my interrogation report? Admiral Daala pressed me over and over again for those details."

Qwi crossed her slender bluish arms over her chest. "No, that wasn't in your debriefing summary, which you so melodramatically call an "interrogation.""

"Then you didn't get the whole report," Han said.

"Nonsense. I'm ent.i.tled to all data." She stared at her feet.

"Besides, I only develop the concepts. I make them work. If someone on the outside abuses my inventions, I can't be held responsible. That's beyond the scope of what I do."

Han made a noncommittal sound, simmering with anger. Her words sounded rehea.r.s.ed, like something that had been drilled into her. She didn't even seem to think about what she was saying.

Qwi flitted back to her 3-D display panel, tapping on the musical keys and humming to sharpen the long, angular image she had been constructing when Han opened his eyes. "Would you like to see what I'm working on now?" Qwi asked, studiously avoiding any mention of the previous discussion.

"Sure," Han said, afraid that when she no longer needed to talk to him, Qwi would send him back to his detention cell.

She gestured to the image of the small craft. Four-sided and elongated, it looked like the long shard of a firefacet gem. From the diagram he could see a pilot's compartment with s.p.a.ce enough for six people. Small lasers studded strategic areas; the bottom of the long point carried a strange toroidal transmitting dish.

"Right now we're working on enhancing the armor," Qwi said. "Though the craft is not much larger than a single-man fighter, we need it to be completely impervious to attack. By introducing quantum-crystalline armor, where only a few layers of atoms are stacked as densely as physics permits, laminated on top of another thin film just as tough but phase shifted, we can be confident that nothing will harm it. Not so much as a dent."

Han nodded to the laser emplacements; he couldn't see well from his vantage chained against a support pillar. "Then why add the weaponry if the ship is indestructible?" He had visions of a fleet of these things replacing the TIE fighters; a small force of indestructible a.s.sault craft could fly into any New Republic fleet and carve the ships up at their leisure.

"This craft is highly maneuverable, and small enough not to be noticed on a system-wide scan, but they still might encounter some resistance. Remember, the Death Star was the size of a small moon. This accomplishes through finesse what the Death Star brought about through brute force."

With a cold fear inside Han did not want to know the answer to his next question. How could she compare this small ship to the Death Star?

But he couldn't stop himself from asking, "And what is it? What does it do?"

Qwi looked at the image with awe, pride, and fear. "Well, we haven't actually tested it yet, but the first full-scale model is basically completed. We call this concept the Sun Crusher, tiny but immensely powerful. One small, impervious craft launches a modulated resonance projectile into a star, which triggers a chain reaction in the core, igniting a supernova even in low-ma.s.s stars. Straightforward and simple."

In his horror, Han could think of nothing to say. The Death Star destroyed planets, but the Sun Crusher could destroy whole solar systems.

Luke and Lando stood with Moruth Doole high inside one of Kessel's atmosphere stacks. They held the rusted guard railing at the edge of a catwalk, staring down the dizzying drop. Leaning into the stack, they breathed the manufactured air boiling into the sky; it reminded Luke of the great air shaft in Cloud City.

Doole shouted into the roaring background noise. "According to one old Imperial study, there's only enough raw material in Kessel's crust to keep the atmosphere in equilibrium for a century or two at our present rate of consumption." He shrugged, hunching his b.u.mpy shoulders in a sort of seizure. "A few years ago the output was higher so that the slaves could walk around and breathe the air--but what's the point in allowing that?"

Lando nodded sagely, as if still interested, while Luke said nothing. Doole had been their tour guide for an entire day, talking more than even the long-winded senators on Coruscant. Doole wanted Lando's half million credits and went about extolling Kessel's virtues like a representative from the planetary chamber of commerce.

Wherever Doole took them, Luke strained his Jedi senses, reaching out to find some sign of Han or Chewbacca. But Luke could feel no tickle in the Force, no ripple of his friends' presence. Perhaps they were truly dead after all.

Lando continued his conversation with Doole, shouting into the rushing wind that rose through the stack. "A lot can change around here by the time the air runs out. What matters is what you accomplish during your own lifetime."

Doole's hissing laugh was swallowed by background noise. He reached up to lay a hand on Lando's shoulder. "We think alike, Mr. Tymmo. Who cares what happens after we're s.p.a.ce dust? I'd rather squeeze Kessel dry while I've got it in my fist."

"You seem to have such an enormous operation. Why are you still running it solo?" Lando asked.

Doole flinched at the term "solo," and Luke knew Lando had chosen his word carefully; both of them caught the Rybet's reaction. "What do you mean?" Doole asked.

"Well, when the Imperial confiscation of spice ended, I would have thought you'd open all your markets, get a thousand representatives to spread the product. Jabba the Hutt is dead. Why didn't you link up with the unified smugglers under Talon Karrde and Mara Jade? That must have hurt your profits."

Doole pointed one gummy-ended finger at Lando. "Our profits are growing enormously, now that we get all the glitterstim, rather than just what we can steal from under Imperial noses. And after being so long under the yoke of the Empire, I didn't want to get into the same position with the New Republic. Everybody knows that Jade and Karrde are just puppets."

Seeing Lando's skepticism, Doole waved his hands. "Oh, but we are considering it, of course. In fact, I've already spoken with a minister from the New Republic, opening up a line of communication that may eventually lead to an alliance."

"Sounds like good news," Lando said in a noncommittal voice.

Doole led them back along the catwalk to the access doorway, where Artoo waited. Shutting the heavy door behind them, Doole paused a moment for their ears to adjust to the sudden silence. "As you can see, a great deal is changing around here. You, my friend, have chosen a good time to join in."

"If I decide to invest," Lando said firmly.

"Yes, yes, if you decide to invest. The truth is, this could be even more important, Mr. Tymmo. Since the death of Skynxnex, I'll be needing a new, er, a.s.sistant for running the spice mines."

Lando fluffed the cape behind him in a self-important gesture. "If I'm investing half a million credits, Doole, I'd expect to be more of a partner than an a.s.sistant."

Doole practically kowtowed. "Of course. Trivial details can be worked out. I'll also need a new shift boss. Maybe your companion here would be interested in the work?" He looked at Luke, squinting with his egg-white eye.

Luke met the Rybet's mechanical eye and stared into the focus-changing lenses, trying to pry some secrets from Doole's brain. Luke said, "I'll have to think about it."

Doole ignored him, focusing his attention back on Lando. "Now then, you've seen practically everything. Is there anything else I can show you?"

Lando looked to Luke, who pondered a moment. Thoughts of the jagged moon and its security base kept troubling him. If Han was not on Kessel itself, perhaps he was imprisoned on the moonbase.

"Aren't you worried about attack from remnants of the Empire?" Luke asked. "Or consolidation forces from the New Republic?"

Doole brushed aside the comment. "We have our own defenses. Don't worry."

But Luke persisted, trying to sound like a cautious business a.s.sociate. "If we're going to invest, we should see these alleged defenses. We know about the energy shield left by the Imperial Correction Facility. But do you have a fleet of any sort?"

Doole began to sputter, but Lando took charge. "Moruth, if there's something you don't want us to see ..."

"No, no, it's no trouble at all. I'll just have to arrange a shuttle up to the moonbase. I don't want you to think we have anything to hide!"

Doole bustled off to arrange for the shuttle, leaving Luke and Lando to exchange skeptical glances.

Lando did not like the idea of leaving the Lady Luck behind on the landing pad of the Imperial Correction Facility, but Doole continued to play the gracious host. Luke silently tried to console him as they lifted off in the short-range shuttle, but Lando kept looking out the small window as if he would never see his ship again.

Kessel's moon approached, looking like a hollowed sphere with most of the rock scooped out to house a large internal hangar and the enormous generators and transmitters that created the protective energy shield surrounding the planet.

After they landed, Moruth Doole strutted out of the shuttle, gesturing them to follow with an impatience that made Luke curious. Doole stood waiting for them as Artoo worked his way down the ramp and into the giant grotto. Behind a transparent atmosphere-containment screen, Luke could see stars and the trailing wisps of gas looping around the black hole cl.u.s.ter.

Doole seemed prouder of his defensive fleet than he was of any other aspect of the Kessel operations. "Follow me."

He waddled across the rock floor of the hangar bay, leading them along rows and rows of fighter craft arranged in seemingly random order.

They pa.s.sed ships Luke found familiar and others so exotic he could not even identify them. He called on his knowledge as a fighter pilot to a.s.sess the fleet: X-wings, Y-wings, powerful Corellian Corvettes, a single B-wing, TIE fighters, TIE interceptors, four TIE bombers, several Skipray blastboats, gamma -cla.s.s a.s.sault shuttles. In s.p.a.ce, like prizes around the ragged opening of the moon, hovered larger attack ships--three Carrack cruisers, two big Lancer frigates, a single Loronar strike cruiser.

"After we drove out the Empire," Doole said, "I placed the highest priority on a defensive fleet. I bought every fighter I could find, no matter what its condition, and hired experienced mechanics from the Corellian sector of Nar Shaddaa."

He grinned with his amphibian lips. "We just got the energy shield operational again two days ago. I can heave a big sigh of relief now.

With the shields finally up and our new fleet as a backup, Kessel is safe and independent. We can set glitterstim prices across the galaxy without interference from anybody."

"Sure is a lot of ships," Lando agreed. "I'm impressed."

Luke recalled how much trouble the New Republic had obtaining sufficient fighting ships during Admiral Thrawn's guerrilla campaigns. If Moruth Doole had been pulling all the strings he could to obtain every functional ship in the sector, no wonder supplies had been so limited.

"We should be able to defend against spice pirates, don't you think?" Doole said.

They kept walking along the rows of parked ships. Suddenly Lando froze, and Luke felt a surge of shocked emotion from him. Artoo began chittering wildly. Luke looked around until he saw one modified light freighter of Corellian manufacture--a ship that looked decidedly familiar.

"What is it?" Doole asked, looking down at the droid.

Lando took a moment to regain his composure. He rapped his knuckles on Artoo's top dome. "Stray cosmic ray, I suppose. Occasionally these old astromech units frazzle a circuit." He swallowed. "Could I speak with my a.s.sistant for a moment in private, Moruth?"