"I voted to go." Marit's voice was firm. "The group rules."

"But I'm part of the group! The rule is that all decisions must be unanimous. Why isn't Rolai letting me vote?"

Marit shifted from one foot to the other. "He says new members shouldn't have full voting privileges until they've completed a mission — "

"And did you vote on that, or did Rolai just tell you?" Marit's silence told him what he needed to know. "So I'm supposed to risk my life without having a say in what we do? Do you think that's fair?"

"Do you think it's fair to sabotage our engines to get what you want?"

Marit's voice rose challengingly. "How could you do this? I trusted you! I brought you into the group!"

Marit's brown eyes held anger and reproach. Anakin felt it was time for the truth. He owed her that.

"I'm a Jedi," he said. "I'm not really a student at the Leadership School. I was sent there to investigate Gillam Tarturi's disappearance."

"Gillam?" Marit was surprised.

"Don't you want to know what happened to him?" Anakin asked. "And before we left, Ferus Olin disappeared. What if Rolai had something to do with it? What if he's funding the squad with ransom money? He's the one in charge of your treasury, and he's the security expert. He's the one with the connection to Rana Halion. What if she got him to kidnap Gillam? All the pieces fit. Why did he lie to you about this mission? Don't you want to get to the bottom of it?"

Marit looked sad. "I wish you'd told me."

"I'm telling you now."

"You don't understand anything. Gillam — " Marit hesitated.

"So tell me," Anakin said, exasperated. "What about Gillam?"

"What about Gillam?" A mocking voice suddenly came from behind him.

Anakin whirled around. Gillam Tarturi stood, leaning against the wing of a starfighter. He was the same height as Anakin, and their eyes met across the space. Anakin felt shock and dismay ripple through him.

Anakin looked back at Marit. She nodded slowly.

"Gillam is the squad," she said. "It was his idea. He formed it. He made up the bylaws. He recruited us. We wouldn't have done anything without him. We would have been a bunch of miserable outcasts."

"You faked your disappearance," Anakin said to Gillam. "Why?"

"I have my reasons," Gillam replied lightly.

Marit spoke into her comlink. "We need you," she said crisply.

"What's going on?" Anakin asked.

For his answer, he heard the soft sound of her blaster leaving its holster. He could have stopped her easily, but he didn't. Marit pointed the blaster at him, a reluctant look on her face. Within seconds, the rest of the squad rushed into the hangar. Their blasters were drawn. They were all pointed at Anakin.

"I'm sorry," Marit said.

Chapter Fifteen

Marit's gaze was sorrowful. Rolai and Gillam looked hardened with purpose. But the others — Hurana, Tulah, and Ze — looked afraid. Why were they afraid? Anakin sensed that there was a conspiracy here. Gillam and Rolai were together, and they had roped in the rest of the reluctant squad.

Except for Marit.

There is something going on here that even Marit doesn't know.

"He disabled the laser cannons on two of the starfighters," Marit told the others. "It's all right — I know how to fix it." She turned to Anakin.

"We're going to have to restrain you until we're safely away."

Anakin looked at Gillam. "Is that so, Gillam? Why don't you tell her what you really have in mind?"

"Sorry, Marit," Gillam said easily. "That's not quite the plan."

"What's the plan, Gillam?" Anakin asked.

Marit gave Gillam a questioning look.

"How would the kidnapping disgrace Senator Tarturi if he wasn't implicated in something terrible?" Gillam said to Marit.

"And we get a very large bonus from Rana Halion, too," Rolai said.

"Think about what it will do for the countermovement, Marit," Gillam said. "The Senator kidnaps his own son to throw suspicion on the lerians.

And then something goes wrong, and his son dies — "

"And it's his fault," Rolai chortled. "He sacrificed his own son so he could keep his power!"

"I don't get it," Marit said.

"I do," Anakin said. "They want to kill me." Shocked, Marit looked from Gillam to Rolai. "That can't be true."

"Actually, we were going to hand you over to Rana Halion for that particular step," Gillam said. "But as long as you pushed the issue…" He flourished his blaster and smiled at Anakin.

"But you're not Gillam — they'll figure that out," Marit said.

"They have a plan to disguise the body somehow," Anakin said. "I'm sure Rana Halion can find ways. I'll be taken for Gillam. And Senator Tarturi will not only be disgraced among his own people, he'll have a war on his hands. He won't be able to investigate, even if he wants to."

"Which he won't, because he won't care," Gillam said. "He'll just care about his Senatorial privileges being threatened."

"It's a brilliant plan," Rolai said.

Marit stared at the two of them. "You're both insane."

Gillam shook his head sadly. "Poor Marit. You lost your nerve on Tierell. That's why we couldn't trust you."

Marit looked at Tulah, Hurana, and Ze. "Are you going along with this?

" The three of them looked uncomfortable.

"Gillam says we must be warriors," Hurana said. "This is the only way.

" "I just do the tech stuff," Ze said.

"This has nothing to do with me," Tulah said.

"Ah, one thing I should point out," Gillam said. "Because of the disappearance of another student, the school has gone into security code green. And that means that all passes have been cancelled. You've missed three of the hour check-ins."

"I knew I should have extended the range on our comlinks," Ze muttered.

"Which means we've been expelled," Hurana said.

"Which means, dear friends, that we have nowhere to go," Gillam said.

"It's a big galaxy out there. We only have one another. And that's a good thing. Together, we can be the best. We can have everything we want, if we just stick together. At first we did it because nobody wanted us. But now we can do it because we're the best. We belong together."