His even tone and steady hands did not surprise Aryn. He seemed to thrive under stress. He’d have made a decent Jedi, she imagined.

She checked the distance between the cruiser and Fatman, the speed the beam was pulling them.

“You have five seconds,” she said.

“I know.”

“Four.”

“Do you believe that’s helpful?”

“Two.”

He tapped another series of keys and the engines whined so loudly they overwhelmed the alarm.

“One second,” she said.

In her mind’s eye, she imagined Fatman snapping in two, imagined she and Zeerid perishing in the vacuum, their dying sight pieces of Fatman flaming like pyrotechnics as they cut a path through Coruscant’s atmosphere.

“And … we go!” Zeerid said.

He twisted the stick leftward at the same moment that he released all of the pent-up power into the engines.

The sudden rush arrested the backward motion of the ship and Fatman bucked like an angry rancor. Metal creaked, screamed under the stress. Somewhere deep within the ship, something burst with a hiss.

For a fraction of a second the ship hung in space, perfectly still, engines wailing, their power warring with the tractor beam’s pull. And then Fatman tore loose and streaked free. The sudden acceleration pressed Aryn and Zeerid into the back of their seats.

Fire alarms sounded. Aryn checked the board.

“Fires in the engine compartment, Zeerid.”

He was talking to himself under his breath, handling the stick, watching the scanner, and might not have heard her.

“He’s right behind us,” Zeerid said.

“Get into the atmosphere,” she said. “That cruiser has no maneuverability outside a vacuum. We can ditch somewhere, get lost in the sky traffic before they can dispatch a fighter.”

“Right,” he said, and slammed down on the stick.

Fatman dipped her nose and Coruscant once more came into view, tantalizingly close.

Smoke wafted into the cockpit from the rear, the smell of seared electronics.

“Aryn!”

“I’m on it,” she said, and started to unstrap herself.

“Chemical extinguishers are in wall mounts in every corridor.”

ON THE MAIN SCREEN, Malgus watched the freighter’s engines flare blue. The ship shook loose of the tractor beam’s noose and dived toward the planet like a blaster shot. A murmur went through the bridge crew.

“Pursue, helm,” Commander Jard said.

The helmsman engaged the engines and accelerated after the freighter.

“The tractor has failed, my lord,” Commander Jard said to Malgus, checking the command readout. “We will have it up again in moments.”

Malgus watched the freighter open some distance between it and the cruiser, and made up his mind. He had crossed a line and started down a road when he had first engaged the tractor beam. But the time was not yet right to walk farther down that road. He could not afford to let the Jedi, Aryn Leneer, get to Coruscant, lest Angral start to perceive motives in Malgus that Malgus would not yet acknowledge in himself.