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and across berms of scalpel grass. The harsh barks were accompanied by the war cries of Yuuzhan Vong chase teams, running behind the pack. Thorsh banked just in time to avoid a horde of thud and razor bugs that whirled out of the trees, passing within centimeters of the swoop and tearing into the opposite shoreline.
    Drawn by the commotion, schools of sharp-toothed predators, showing multifinned backs and serrated tails, leapt from the water to gorge on the airborne weapon bugs. Wide-winged raptors with huge wingspans left the fungus-filled cavities ofdying trees to glide down and grab whatever bugs the aquatic behemoths missed.
    Thorsh pulled at the handgrips and sent the swoop into a steep climb. The saline water grew more agitated beneath them as the mouth of the estuary came into view, a line of white where curling waves broke against the marshy shore. Hundreds of white-cliffed islets, straight as towers and draped with vegetation, rose from out of the aquamarine ocean. On the horizon a volcano mounded from the water, great clouds of smoke billowing from its crater and bleeding a thick river of lava that turned part of the sea to steam.
    Thorsh scanned the otherwise clear sky for signs of the coralskipper. A kilometer away to the east, the other swoop was paralleling him. Gaining altitude, the two machines sped out over the breaking waves, making for the narrow channel that separated the islets closest to shore.
    “Heads up!” the Bith said into Thorsh’s right ear. His long-fingered hand shot out, indicating an object in the western sky.
    Thorsh tracked it and nodded, muttering a curse.
    The Yuuzhan Vong called it a tsik vai. Reminiscent of a seabird, it was an atmospheric search craft, its neck sac inflated and bright red as a signal to other craft in the area. Powered by a gravity-sensitive dovin basal, the monstrosity had a transparent blister cockpit, flexible wings, and gill analogs that made it whine in flight.
    Thorsh threw his weight against the handgrips and leaned hard against the steering auxiliaries, slewing the swoop toward the closest island, intent on keeping as close to the white cliffs as he dared.
    The tsik vai was not unnerved. It dived for its small prey, whining and releasing several thin, cablelike grasping tendrils.
    Thorsh dropped back to the turbulent surface, swerved, and cut across the channel for the neighboring islet, running full out, a meter above the waves. The search craft was following him down, prepared to make another grab, when something nailed it from behind.
    Thorsh and the Bith watched in bafflement as the tsik vai veered off course, one wing blown off, and spiraled out ofcontrol. It struck the sea with a loud splash, skipped twice on the waves, then crashed nose-first and began to sink. Out of the eastern sky, dazzled by sunlight, something large and dull-black was approaching at supersonic speed.
    Another Yuuzhan Vong vessel, Thorsh decided, whose pilot had just shot down one of his own craft to get to the swoop.
    Twitching the braking thrusters, he spun the swoop around in midair, hoping to race away from the mystery vessel before it could draw a bead on him. Even so, he waited for the fireballs to start falling. When they didn’t, he glanced over his shoulder in time to see a twin-mandibled old freighter come streaking out of the cloudless sky. Thorsh felt crackling heat wash over him as the ship made a low, earsplitting, teeth-rattling pass, its dorsal laser cannon loosing green hyphens of energy at a trio of pursuing coralskippers.
    The freighter signaled the swoops with a rocking motion, then banked into a long sweeping turn to the south.
    “Looks like our ride’s here!” Thorsh said.
    “And in worse trouble than we are!”
    A flurry of well-placed bursts from the freighter’s top gunner caught the lead coralskipper head-on and sent it boiling into the sea.
    The other two enemy craft continued to pummel the freighter with plasma missiles. Perhaps frustrated by the