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Mara said. On the infrared display, a string of tiny white circles was flaring to life near the center of the unknown object. “At least until we know what those are.”
    The circles began to swirl and grow larger. Mara didn’t even try to count the number, but there had to be over a hundred of them. More tiny circles blazed into existence and shot after the others. She initiated a series of automated systems checks to warm the
Shadow
’s battle circuits.
    “Lower—”
    The
Shadow
’s retractable laser cannons dropped into firing position as Luke anticipated Mara’s order. She armed the proton torpedoes and opened the firing-tube doors.
    “Artoo, tell Nanna to put Ben in his crash couch,” Luke ordered.
    R2-D2 tweetled a protest.
    “Nobody said they
were
shooting,” Luke said. “We just want to be ready.”
    R2-D2 added another warning.
    “Really?” Luke responded. “That many?”
    Mara glanced at the corner of her display and saw a counter quickly adding numbers.
    “Five hundred?” she gasped. “Who sends five hundred craft to investigate one intruder?”
    R2-D2 chirped testily, then Mara’s screen displayed a message telling her to have some patience. He was still trying to assemble vessel profiles. Identifying who had sent them would have to wait.
    “Sorry,” Mara said, wondering when she had started to be intimidated by astromech droids. “Take your time.”
    R2-D2 acknowledged, then added a note about the propulsion systems the vessels were using.
    “Rockets?” Luke asked in disbelief. “As in old nuclear rockets?”
    R2-D2 tweeted irritably. The note on Mara’s display read,
    Chemical rockets. Methane/oxygen, specific impulse 380.
    Luke whistled at the low number. “At least we can run, if we have to.”
    “Jedi?” Saba began to siss again. “Run?”
    The image on Mara’s display melded into a single infrared blob. She looked up and saw a small cloud of twinkling stars between the
Shadow
and the unknown object. As she watched, the swirling cloud grew steadily larger and brighter. Soon the stars resolved into two parts, yellow slivers of rocket exhaust and brilliant green bursts that looked a lot like strobe beacons.
    Mara engaged the ion drive actuator. “Does this make sense to
anyone
?” She began to turn, giving the
Shadow
some running room. “With all that evasive maneuvering, that
has
to be a combat—”
    R2-D2 began to whistle and trill urgently.
    Mara checked her display, then asked, “What old blink code?”
    R2-D2 buzzed in impatience.
    “Imperial?”
Mara looked out the side of the canopy. The swarm had drawn close enough now to reveal the sleek, dart-shaped hulls of a small fighter craft stretched between the greennose strobes and the yellow rocket tails. In the closest vessel, she could barely make out a pair of curved antennae pressed against the interior of a low cockpit canopy, and there were two bulbous black eyes peering out at her. “As in
Palpatine’s
Empire?”
    R2-D2 squawked a peevish affirmative.
    “Then tell us what they’re saying,” Luke ordered. “And stop talking to Mara that way.”
    R2-D2 warbled a halfhearted apology, then the message appeared on Mara’s display.
    Lizil welcomes you … Please all arrivals may please enter through the central portal please.

FOUR
    The nearer the
Falcon
drew to her destination, the more mystified Leia became. The thumb-sized oval of darkness they had found when they emerged from hyperspace—at the coordinates they had wheedled out of Corran Horn, who was supervising operations in Luke’s absence—was now a wall of murk that stretched to all edges of the cockpit canopy. But the terrain scanners showed a jumble of asteroids, iceballs, and dustbergs ranging from a hundred meters across to several thousand, all held together by a web of metal struts and stony tubes. Though the structure had not yet collapsed under its own gravity, a rough guess of its mass was enough to make Leia worry.
    The
Falcon
’s