They cleared the launch tunnel and moved into the broader landing bay, pelting past a few shuttles on landing pods and a couple of treaded cargo droids. A few of Harbinger's black-uniformed crew scrambled out of ships or trotted along the landing bay deck, watching them pass, questions on their faces. Relin imagined the reports that must have been heading to Saes and the command crew.

"It's enormous in here," Marr said, eyeing the whole scene with a look of faint wonder, perhaps realizing that he was flying in the landing bay of a ship that had fought in a war five thousand years previous. Or perhaps just surprised that they had made it that far.

Relin pointed with his stump when he saw the freight corridor.

"There."

Marr nodded and did not slow.

"Brace yourself," the Cerean said.

Three droids were unloading cargo from a lev pallet. Marr slammed into them, crushing all three, while spinning Junker on its repulsors and slamming its port side against the freight corridor opening. The impact rattled Relin's teeth. Junker protested with a groan of stressed metal. Relin protested with a grunt of pain. It felt as if someone had stuck a knife in his ribs.

"Are you all right?" Marr asked, unstrapping himself.

Relin caught his breath, unbuckled his safety straps, rose, and thumped Marr on the shoulder. "Yes. Well done."

Marr activated the security system right away. Metal shields slid over every viewport: Junker closing its eyes.

"That will protect the ship from small-arms fire. But she is still vulnerable to more powerful weapons. I should not leave her here long."

"I do not think they will try to blow her up on their own landing deck, at least not before they surround her with a makeshift blast wall. We could have loaded her with explosives for all they know. No, I think droids build a blast wall while a security team tries to gain entry."

As if to make Relin's point, blasterfire barked from outside the ship, dull, harmless thumps against the bulkheads.

"None of which will stop some fool pilots from taking shots at the ship," Relin said. "We must hurry."

He turned to go but Marr's hand pulled him back around. The Cerean did not make eye contact.

"How often do Cereans fall to the dark side? In your time, I mean."

Relin understood the origin of the question. The touch of the Lignan, and Marr's conscious use of the Force, had brought him face-to-face with the two poles of potential. Relin remembered that feeling himself from his early days in the Order, the feeling that he stood on a very thin line, and that he might step over it at any moment.

"The dark side can reach anyone," Relin said, pained by the truth of the words.

Marr considered, nodded, released Relin's arm.

"Thank you," he said. "For showing me what you showed me."

Relin was touched, but kept his feelings to himself. "I need to go, Marr. Now."

Relin and Marr sprinted through Junker's corridors, Marr leading, until they reached the port cargo bay. The bay felt cavernous, as empty as Marr had seen it in years. His speeder bike, Khedryn's Searing swoop, and a few sealed shipping containers were all that remained. They had spaced everything else.

They hurried across the bay, their boots beating staccato on the metal floor, until they stood before the cargo door. Marr put his finger on the red button that would lower the door and looked to Relin. He could see that the Jedi was not well. Sweat glistened on his pale skin, pasting his black hair to his scalp. His breathing was labored, pained, like that of a wounded animal. His deep sunken eyes looked clear, though, lit by some inner resolve, and that heartened Marr.

"Ready?" Marr asked.

Relin inhaled and bounced on the balls of his feet, staring at the cargo bay door as if he could burn holes into it with his eyes. He ignited his lightsaber, the green blade humming in the quiet of the bay.

"Open it."

Marr hit the button and the bay door started to descend. The wail of Harbinger's alarm carried through the opening.

"Five minutes and go," Relin said without looking at Marr.

Before the door got halfway down, blasterfire from the freight corridor sizzled into the bulkheads, scorching the metal. Marr threw himself against the wall, out of the line of fire. Relin did not so much as move while the door continued its trek. More blasterfire poured through the opening. Relin deflected two shots with his lightsaber, almost casually sending the bolts into Junker's bulkheads.

Looking straight ahead, Relin started to speak, stopped, then started again, his lips barely moving.

"May the Force be with you, Marr."

Marr heard sadness in Relin's words, saw tears pooling in the Jedi's eyes.

"Relin… " Marr began, but before he could say more the bay door opened fully and Relin bounded out into a hail of blasterfire, the glowing line of his lightsaber transformed into a figure-eight by the speed of his defense. He roared like a rancor as he sped down the corridor.

Blasterfire forced Marr back against the wall and he lost line of sight to the corridor. He heard Relin's shouts answered by throaty growls, heard enough blasterfire to know that Relin was facing a large number of enemies. Blasts carried through the cargo bay and blackened the storage containers.

A lull in the fire allowed Marr a moment to peek out and down the corridor.

A pair of bodies-large, red-skinned humanoids in black uniforms-lay in a pool of blood eight meters down the corridor, both decapitated. One of the heads faced Marr, yellow eyes still open, a fleshy beard of finger-length appendages partially concealing a fanged mouth. Marr had never seen such creatures before.

Relin sheltered in a crouch in one of the many doorways that lined the hall, maybe fifteen meters from Junker's gangway. More of the red-skinned humanoids, all of them armed with large blaster pistols, crouched at intervals in the other doorways and alcoves that dotted the length of the corridor. Two more sheltered in the middle of the hall behind a treaded droid, which beeped plaintively at its predicament. Marr assumed the creatures to be some kind of security detail. He counted fourteen of them.

The smoky air carried the acrid tang of blaster discharge and scorched metal. Harbinger's alarm continued to scream.

The creatures shouted at one another in deep, gravelly voices, though Marr did not understand the language. Now and again, one of them fired a blaster shot in Relin's vicinity, but none made as though to advance. They appeared content to keep Relin pinned down. Probably they had already called for reinforcements.

Relin crouched with his back to the wall, facing Marr, favoring his cracked ribs. Anger twisted his expression so much he could have been another man altogether. His eyes looked like holes. The light from his lightsaber cast his pale skin in green.

He must have felt Marr's eyes on him. He looked up and made an angry gesture with his stump, ordering Marr to seal Junker.

When Marr made no move to comply, Relin snarled and leapt out of the doorway, moving so fast he looked blurred. His lightsaber weaved an oblong shield of light around him. The security detail opened up in full and blaster shots filled the corridor. Relin spun like a top, deflecting the shots with rapidity but no control. Blasts slammed into the ceiling, into overhead lights, sending a rain of glass to the floor, into the cargo bay, close enough to Marr's face that he felt the heat of its passage.

Relin closed on the nearest pair of the red-skinned humanoids, gesturing with his stump as he neared them. The creatures' blasters flew from their hands and they backed off a step, eyes wide, fumbling with the huge metal polearms on their backs.