“I don’t like the idea of pulling those back by hand,” Jom admitted. “Not with a lake on the other side.”

“Do we have any other choice?”

“Does this thing have weapons?” Jom asked.

Leesa checked a readout. “I think so. The bare minimum, at least. Simple lasers, nothing more.”

“Enough to punch through the doors?”

She continued to check controls. “There’s only one way to find out, but the real problem comes when we make it out …”

Kip’s heart sank. “You don’t know how to fly.”

“Not in the slightest. I’m great at turning on power and not at all bad when it comes to identifying systems, but getting us back to the surface? Well, that’s a very different matter.”

Jom swore.

“You can say that again.”

“Well, I don’t know how to do it.” He swiveled around to look expectantly at Kip.

“Me? Why would I know how to fly a shuttle?”

“You must have been on a lot.”

“As a passenger.”

“Oh, for the love of Dac, move aside.” They all turned at the sudden outburst of Quarrenese to see Nwo heaving himself toward Leesa, his wrinkled hand flapping her away. “Go on. Scoot. Scoot.”

Even without fully understanding him, the attendant moved aside, letting the Quarren flop into the flight seat.

“You’re a pilot?” Kip asked.

“Used to be a pilot, but they can’t have changed things too much.”

Nwo started flipping switches with his webbed fingers, and the engines hummed, as did the comm, a voice crackling over the line.

“—this is Vam Targes, the designer of this vessel. I am attempting to jettison the main processor which contains vital research about the hyperspace anomalies the Nihil seem to be using. The flight deck is rapidly filling with water and—”

The sound of an explosion boomed over the speakers, which would have been worrying enough if the hangar bay didn’t suddenly lurch backward. They all screamed, grabbing hold of anything they could as the shuttle shifted, sliding toward the back wall. There was an almighty crack as the bay’s ceiling finally gave way, water cascading from above. Something very large and very loud struck the top of them, the shuttle’s ceiling bowing. They jolted to a halt, Jom craning his neck to peer up.

“We’re caught beneath a beam.”

“What kind of beam?” Kip asked.

“The kind that would need a dozen Wookiees to shift.”

The hangar bay was filling fast, the water level already halfway up the viewport.

“Do you think the ship’s gone under the lake?” Kip asked.

“There’s no way to know,” Leesa said. “But it’s likely.”

“Then what are we going to do,” Jom whined.

“Hold on to something,” Nwo burbled, firing the engines. The shuttle shook more violently than ever, and for a split second there was a terrible scraping noise as it tried to break free of the beam.