Vision of the future

'Right,' Luke said, frowning as he picked up his pace. There was something ominous growing behind the protection of Mara's mental barrier: a dark thought, or equally dark purpose. For a moment he considered asking her about it; but the fact that she was hiding it from him strongly suggested he should leave it alone. 'Any idea what their plan is?' he asked instead as they caught up with Artoo.

'Short-term, to put us in deep storage for a few days,' Mara said. 'They figure making us go into healing trances is the easiest way to do that; hence, the gunfire.'

'Friendly sorts,' Luke murmured.

'Yeah,' Mara agreed. 'Long-term, they're waiting for Thrawn to return.' There was a momentary flicker in her emotions, a deepening of that hidden darkness... 'And since they think he may have popped up at Bastion, Parck's decided to head out there and talk to them.' Luke felt suddenly cold. 'And turn this place over to the Empire?'

'The place, and everything in it,' Mara said grimly. 'That may not be what they think they're going to do; but once the Empire knows they're here, they'll get hold of it. One way or another.' Ahead, Artoo warbled and made a right turn into a cross corridor. 'Where are we going?' Mara demanded as they followed.

'I don't know,' Luke said, frowning. Twenty meters ahead, the corridor ended in a T-junction, and for some unknown reason his mind flashed back to the Cavrilhu Pirates' asteroid base and the very different T-junction at the far end of the Jedi trap they'd lured him into. Somewhere directly ahead, he could sense the blank area created by a group of ysalamiri.

And then Artoo twittered uncertainly and rolled to a stop, facing the wall blocking their corridor in obvious confusion...

'Artoo, get back!' Luke snapped, bringing up his lightsaber and taking a long step to put himself in front of Mara. 'It's a trap!' Directly ahead, the wall exploded into a shower of dazzling sparks and completely disintegrated—

And standing shoulder to shoulder together in the corridor behind what was left of the false wall, a dozen ysalamiri-equipped Chiss opened fire.

Artoo squealed and swiveled around, racing back toward Luke as fast as he could, Child Of Winds scrambling frantically to hang on. Luke barely noticed them, his whole attention focused ahead on the Chiss. He forced himself to relax, letting the Force guide his hands as it had in so many such battles, swinging his lightsaber into blocking position in front of each shot. But with the area around the Chiss closed to that subconscious prescience, a precious split second was being shaved off his normal preparation time. Behind him, Mara's blaster was flashing steadily over his shoulder, methodically picking off ysalamiri. If he could keep up their defense long enough for her to finish the job...

Somewhere at the edge of his mind he could hear Child Of Winds screeching something, but he had no concentration to spare for a translation. Ahead, through the massed line of Chiss he could see what appeared to be movement behind them; and then, without warning, they dropped in unison to one knee—

Revealing another line of troops that had come up behind them.

And suddenly there were twice as many bolts blazing his direction. Bolts he was slowly but steadily losing the race to stay ahead of.

Behind him, Mara barked something, and through his haze of concentration Luke saw one of the standing aliens jerk back and collapse as Mara abandoned her nonkilling policy. Luke clenched his teeth and leaned into his effort, dimly realizing that if Parck sent a team in from behind them right now, he and Mara would be finished. Child Of Winds screeched again—

And then, sweeping in from both directions down the cross corridor ahead, a group of Qom Jha dove straight into the middle of the battle.

The Chiss had no chance to react. Sweeping at full speed just over the heads of the standing warriors, the Qom Jha grabbed the tops of their nutrient frames, the momentum yanking the gunmen off their feet and slamming them hard onto their backs on the floor.

'Let's go,' Luke heard himself shout, breaking into a cautious jog toward the remaining row of kneeling Chiss. If he could get close enough to get them in range of Mara's stun setting... Half a corridor away, the Qom Jha braked from their mad rush, swiveled around with impossible grace, and charged back at the kneeling gunmen from behind. Again they grabbed the nutrient frames as they passed, pulling the frames and the attached Chiss sprawling onto their faces. Luke let his lightsaber come to a stop, arm muscles starting to tremble with adrenaline and suddenly released tension. Mara had already sprinted past him, waving the Qom Jha aside as her blaster swept its rings of blue stun fire across the downed Chiss. Even as Luke reached her side, the last of the gunmen twitched and stopped moving.

'That was fun,' Mara gritted between clenched teeth, throwing a quick glance both directions down the corridor as she again worked her blaster's select switch. 'I hope they haven't got many more of these little traps set up.'

'I don't think we've got far to go,' Luke said, looking at Artoo. The little droid was already rolling down the cross corridor to their left, heading toward a large, heavy-looking door blocking off the end of the passage fifteen meters away. A door, he noted, equipped with the same locking wheel and hand-grip release system as those of the hidden stairway far behind them. 'Splitter Of Stones, get your people together and follow us.'

He ran forward, closing down his lightsaber and clipping it onto his belt, reaching Artoo as the droid slowed to a