Skyborn

Unsure whether it was better to slow down to prevent a collision or accelerate to avoid being an easy target, Ben started to weave and bob. There was just a vague hint of danger tickling the base of his skull, but that only meant nothing had set its sights on the Shadowyet.

On the third bob downward, the yoke jammed forward and wouldn’t come back. Ben cursed and tried to muscle it, but he was fighting the hydraulic system, and if he fought it too hard, he would break a control cable.

He hit the emergency pressure release, dumping the control system’s entire reservoir into space, and then checked his threat array again.

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The mass ahead was no longer a shadow. A silvery, elongated oval had taken shape in the middle of the display, the

number- bar in its core now climbing past seven million tons. The oval was slowly drifting toward the bottom of the screen and shedding alphanumeric designators, indicating the presence of a debris field andthe danger of an impending collision with the object itself. Ben hit the maneuvering thrusters hard,and the Shadowdecelerated.

He heard a toolbox clang into the main cabin’s rear bulkhead, and his father’s alarmed voice came over the intercom speaker. “What did you hit?”

“Nothing yet.” Ben pulled back on the yoke, using his own strength to force the vector plates down. “The control yoke’s power assist is gone, and we’ve reached a debris field.”

“What sort of debris?” his father demanded. “Ice?

Rock? Iron- nickel?”

Ben thumbed the SELECT bubble active and slid it over to one of the designators: OBJECT B8. An instant later a density analysis offered a 71 percent probability that OBJECT B8 was a medium transport of unknown make and model.

But Ben did not immediately relay the information to his father. As the Shadow’s nose returned to its original plane, an enormous, gray- white dome was slowly coming into view. Dropping down from above and upside down relative to the ship, the dome hung at the base of a large, spi

“Ben, you’re worrying me,” his father admonished.

“How bad is it?”

“Uh, I don’t really know yet.” As Ben spoke, the mill_9780345519399_2p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 6/4/09 10:1

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Troy De

Shadow’s lamp beams continued to slide up the spi

“Yeah,” Luke said. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

As the lamp beams continued to reveal more of the station—at least that’s what Ben assumedhe was looking at—he began to grow even more confused and worried. With a second, dome- capped cylinder rising out of the sphere directly opposite the first, the thing reminded him of a station he had helped infil-trate during the recent civil war. It didn’t seem possible that two such structures could exist in the galaxy by mere coincidence, or that he would have happened on this one by mere chance even if the two wererelated.

He had the uneasy feeling that the Force was at play here—or, to be more precise, that the Force was putting himin play.

Now that they were actually in visual range of their target, Ben brought the full suite of sensors back online and began to investigate. To both his relief and puzzlement, all of the contacts appeared to be derelict vessels.

They ranged widely in size, from small space yachts like the Shadowto an antiquated Tiba

Starting to envision sensor masks and ambushes, Ben slid the Shadowinto the cover of an old TGM

Marauder. The ship looked as deserted as its sensor profile suggested, tumbling slowly with cold engines, mill_9780345519399_2p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 6/4/09 10:1

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi:Abyss 49

open air locks, and no energy emanations whatsoever.

But there was no apparent combat damage, or anything else, to suggest it had been taken by pirates.

Ben turned the sensors on the station itself and found it marginally less derelict. Its power core was active, but barely. A few warm areas suggested that at least some of its atmospheric seals remained intact.

Approaching closer, he could see that three of the dark tubes attached to the upper cylinder had come loose at one end and were in danger of being launched away by centrifugal force. Whoever lived here—if anyone did—they were not much on maintenance.

The clack- clackof boots- in- a- hurry echoed through the open hatchway at the rear of the flight deck, then suddenly stopped. Ben activated the canopy’s mirror panel and found his father standing behind the copilot’s chair, jaw hanging slack as he stared at the slowly spi

“Remind you of anything?” Ben asked.

Luke’s gaze remained fixed on the space station.

“What do you think?” he asked. “It could be a minia-ture Centerpoint Station.”

Centerpoint had been an ancient space station located in the stable zone between the Corellian worlds of Talus and Tralus. Its origins remained cloaked in mys-tery, but the station had once been the most powerful weapon in the galaxy, capable of destroying entire star systems from hundreds of light- years away. One of the few positive things to come of the recent civil war, in Ben’s opinion, had been the facility’s destruction. He was far from happy to discover another version hidden here, deep inside the Maw.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Ben said with a sigh.

“What do we do now? Lob a baradium missile at it?”

Luke’s voice grew disapproving. “Do we havea baradium missile?”

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Ben dropped his gaze. “Sorry. Uncle Han said it was always smart to keep one—”

“Your uncle isn’t a Jedi,” Luke interrupted. “I wish you’d remember that.”

“Sure,” Ben said. “But maybe this one time we should think about the way he would handle this. If this place was built by the same beings that designed Centerpoint Station, the smartest thing we can do is get rid of it.”

“And maybe we will— afterwe unjam our vector plates and replenish our hydraulics.” Luke slipped into the copilot’s seat behind Ben. “In the meantime, try to avoid hitting anything. I’ll see if I can find a safe place to dock this bird.”