"If they haven't already, Harbinger will certainly pick us up now," Relin said, not caring.

Marr nodded. "Engaging repulsors. In we go."

Saes sat in meditation on the floor of his chambers, lost in the Force, trying to plan a role for himself in the new time. His comlink beeped to life, disturbing his calm. Ordinarily he removed it when meditating, but under the circumstances he had not wanted to be out of contact for even a moment.

Llerd's voice carried over the frequency, barely controlled tension in the tone. Saes heard the bleat of an alarm in the background, the proximity alert.

"Captain, a ship jumped directly under us, and coasted through our deflectors into the landing bay."

Saes opened his eyes, inhaled deeply. "A ship? What ship?"

"I have dispatched all available security teams and isolated the area should the craft prove to be loaded with explosives."

"What ship, Lieutenant?"

A pause, then, "I believe it is the ship we pursued into the planet's rings, sir."

"Our pilots reported that ship destroyed," Saes said. He stood and threw on his robes, his anger building, narrowing down to a point.

"Yes, sir," Llerd said. "It appears they were… incorrect."

"They were duped," Saes said.

"Yes, sir."

In ordinary times, Saes might have executed the Blade pilots, but the times were not ordinary. He needed his crew, at least for the time being. He would devise a suitable, non-lethal punishment later.

"I will speak with the pilots later," he said.

"Yes, sir."

Saes cut off the connection to Llerd and opened another, through the Force. He reached out, but tentatively, the way he might have gingerly touched a fingertip on an object that he feared might be too hot.

Immediately he felt a familiar presence.

"Welcome back, Relin," he whispered, surprised to find himself pleased.

He went to one of the display cases built into the wall of his quarters. Five ancient Kaleesh hunting masks leered out from behind the glass, each of them hand carved from the bones of an erkush, a fierce reptilian predator native to Kalee. Shamanic runes covered the brow and cheeks of each mask, invoking the spirits to lend the wearer strength, speed, skill.

Saes opened the case, took a familiar, age-yellowed face from the ancient gallery, fitted it over his own face, and tied it on. He felt himself transformed in that single act, reconnected to the wondrous, faceless savagery of his ancestors.

He would confront Relin while wearing the mask he had worn when he had been Relin's Padawan. It seemed fitting that things end just so. He strode from his chamber, hunting a Jedi.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Snow drifted halfway up the metal and duracrete walls of the facility. Spears of ice hung in thickets from every overhang. Three-quarters of a communications tower jutted upward from the tundra like an accusatory finger blaming the sky for its fate. A faint, snow-blotted light at the tower's top flashed intermittently, keeping time with the beacon playing over Flotsam's cockpit speaker, keeping time with Jaden's heart.

"Looks abandoned," Khedryn said.

Jaden came back to himself, swallowed in a mouth gone dry. "Yes."

"Definitely looks old enough to be Imperial," Khedryn said.

Jaden forced a nod, though a sense of d?j? vu gripped his gut. For an instant he lived in the dreamspace between his Force vision and his real senses and he was suddenly unsure that he wanted to set foot on the moon.

Fighting down the doubt, he reached out through the Force, expecting to feel the bitter recoil of contact with the Sith from his vision.

Nothing.

He took his hand from the stick, made a claw of his fingers, looked at their tips, the fingertips that leaked Force lightning when he was overcome by anger or fear.

Nothing.

"Are you all right?" Khedryn asked, taking the copilot's stick. "What are you doing?"

Embarrassed, Jaden made as though he were flexing his fingers against stiffness. "Nothing. I am fine."

"Maybe a flyover before we set down?" Khedryn said. He did not release the stick and seemed pleased to be in control of the ship.

"Agreed," Jaden said.

Khedryn decreased altitude and speed, flying low over the complex.

With many of the buildings having lost their battle to the snow, Jaden found it difficult to make out the contours of the complex. Small mounds suggested tertiary structures, though it was hard to tell.

"Could be a shield generator," he said, pointing at a dome-shaped mound of snow.

"You would know better than me," Khedryn said.

The central building, a rectangular, single-story mass of ice-rimmed metal, looked like any number of facilities Jaden had seen before. The structure could have been anything from a hazardous materials storage depot to a training complex.

"That looks like an entrance," Khedryn said, pointing at a shadowed portico on one side of the central facility. "Can't see if there's a hatch."

Khedryn fiddled with the instrumentation, tweaking his scanner. "There is still power in the main complex, though not much of it. Life support is online but barely. Some kind of backup or emergency power probably. Good construction to last this long."

"Yes," Jaden said absently, looking at the blowing snow, remembering the ghostly touches of Lassin, Mara, Kam Solusar. The beacon still played over the cockpit speakers, their pleading voices-Help us. Help us.

"If life support is functioning, someone could still be alive in there."

"Unlikely," Khedryn said. "It's been decades. Can we turn that off, Jaden? Jaden?"

Jaden killed the sound of the beacon.

They completed their flyover, having learned little.

"Well?" Khedryn said, and looked across the cockpit at Jaden, one eye on him, one eye off on some distant point. "Having second thoughts?"

"No. Let's put her down," Jaden said. He knew he would not find his answer sitting in Flotsam's cockpit.

The repulsors engaged, pressing Relin and Marr into their seats as Junker streaked toward the landing bay. Leaving the piloting entirely to Marr, Relin sorted through Harbinger's schematics in his mind, and decided on the best approach for his attack. Agitated, he unstrapped himself, stood, and checked his lightsaber and gear, speaking to Marr as he did so.

"About one hundred and fifty meters in, you will see a wide corridor open off the landing bay on our starboard side. It is a freight corridor. Put Junker down against it with the port cargo bay door facing it."

Sweat dampened the wall of Marr's brow. "If you want to block the corridor, it will have to be a belly landing. No skids."

"Right," Relin agreed. He had not thought of that. "No skids."

Were Junker to land on its skids, Harbinger's crew could simply walk or crawl underneath to get into the corridor and at Relin.

"You should strap yourself back in," Marr said. "That will be a bumpy landing."

Relin sat, and buckled himself in. "I will not need long. A few minutes at most and you get Junker out of there. Lots of side corridors open off the freight corridor. They will not know where I have gone, and I am… skillful at avoiding detection."

"Understood," Marr said as they sped down the throat of the landing bay, the guide lights casting the cockpit in red. Marr did not slow once they were within the launch tunnel, and Junker scraped one of Harbinger's bulkheads. Metal shrieked and Relin imagined a shower of sparks trailing in their wake. Marr cursed and got the ship off the wall.

"Calm, Marr," Relin said, though he did not feel it himself. The touch of the Lignan had his spirit churning.