Padawans Orla Jareni and Cohmac Vitus were steering the T-1 shuttle through hyperspace, and Orla couldn’t believe her luck. To judge by the grin on Cohmac’s face, he was equally pleased.

It was the role of a Padawan to do whatever task a Master required help with. Yes, sometimes this included thrilling acts of heroism, but it could also involve mending robes or cleaning the floors. Piloting a ship counted as a high-quality assignment, particularly when that meant bringing them closer to another, even more exciting task: rescuing two kidnapped rulers from the system of Eiram and E’ronoh.

This system lay far beyond the Republic’s borders, in an area that had long resisted Republic membership or help—which the residents labeled “interference.” While Jedi occasionally traveled into this zone of space, such voyages were rare, and the citizens seemed determined to keep it that way. This was, they proclaimed, independent space.

So the fact that these two worlds had called for the Jedi’s assistance was hugely promising. A successful mission might finally bridge the gap between this area and the Republic.

(Master Laret had pointed out that if these planets were willing to ask for help from within the Republic, the situation was undoubtedly a thorny one. But Orla was undaunted.)

Probably this hostage crisis could’ve been resolved by the two worlds working together—something neither planet was willing to do. Eiram and E’ronoh occupied a system that served as a waypoint through hyperspace; they held a gateway, one that had long remained closed to the rest of the galaxy. This could’ve led to immense power for both worlds, had they been willing to share it. Instead, they competed for control of the region, belligerently dealing with those who dared to violate their space, each limiting traffic almost to nothing. Eiram and E’ronoh weren’t actively fighting a war against each other, but intelligence suggested a bitter standoff between the two, one that had lasted for more than a century. Its origins were obscure and, by then, beside the point. Eiram hated E’ronoh. E’ronoh hated Eiram. The end.

Until royalty from each planet had been kidnapped and ransomed.

“It is both a great honor and a great opportunity that these people have called to the Jedi for help,” Master Laret had said when she briefed Orla on the way to the spaceport. “We can do more than save these two rulers. We can prevent a war. We may even be able to open another part of the galaxy.”

Orla had never had an assignment so significant before. Very few Jedi ever had. She didn’t intend to let her master down.

Not again.

Of late, Orla had been asking too many questions. Challenging the decisions of the Jedi Council—only to Master Laret, of course, but still. At first Master Laret had heard her out and even gently debated her, but her patience was being tested.

“To be a Jedi is to serve,” Master Laret had said. “How do you intend to serve if you keep questioning every command?”

The rare rebuke from her master still stung. So this time, Orla would prove how willing she was to serve the Order. She wasn’t going to question a single thing.

Nobody knew whether the moon had once orbited Eiram or E’ronoh, only that it had, at some point countless millennia past, drifted from its orbit and come to rest in dead space between the two worlds. The moon was so devoid of any value that Eiram and E’ronoh didn’t even bother fighting over it. It just hung there, obscure and ignored.

Which was why almost nobody knew about the caves and tunnels deep within the lunar salt flats, and why the caves were a perfect hideout for those who did not wish to be found.

It was the only element of the kidnapping plan that could be called “perfect.” The rest of it left much to be desired.

“Fools!” Isamer growled. The bulky Lasat threw the nearest thing he could reach at his lieutenants; it turned out to be a heavy chair, so they were lucky to dodge it. “How could you kidnap the wrong queen?”

At the far end of the cavern huddled two hostages, each bound with metal cuffs, each wearing finery that had been stained and torn during their abduction. Monarch Cassel of E’ronoh, a bright blue Pantoran, looked extremely nervous about his situation, which indicated more intelligence than Cassel was generally credited with. Next to him sat the tawny-skinned human Queen Thandeka of Eiram, who looked furious. Isamer could crush most humans without even trying, and Thandeka was a small woman—but he was grateful she had no blaster.

One of the lieutenants pointed toward Thandeka, specifically to the silvery coronet woven through her thick black braids. “She wears their crown—the manifest reported the queen was on board—”

“Yes.” Isamer folded his massive arms in front of his chest. “The queen consort was on board. The queen consort is the one who’s married to the ruler. On Eiram, the ruler is Queen Dima—the queen regnant. In other words, the useful one!”

“Oh, bosh,” said Monarch Cassel, amiably enough. “I’m certain the queen regnant wants her consort back. That’ll do, won’t it, for, ah, leverage?”

Under her breath, Thandeka muttered, “What are you playing at? Do you think you can team up with them?”

“Goodness, no.” Cassel seemed appalled at the thought. “But—hearing them describe you as useless, it’s rather impolite—”

“You’re trying to spare my feelings?” Thandeka looked toward the cave ceiling in what might have been either disbelief or despair. “Trust me, right now my ego is the least of our problems.”

Isamer had ignored all this. “We will discuss it no further,” he said. There would be time to punish these lieutenants—and find smarter replacements—after this was done. For now he could only stay the course.

The Hutts would expect no less.

They had approached Isamer, as one of the leaders of the Directorate. The mighty Hutts had come to him! With the Directorate’s greater local knowledge, they explained, he was in a better position to destabilize the local governments. That destabilization would play to the Hutts’ long-term advantage—an advantage they would share with those who had helped them.

Isamer could see it: the Directorate, empowered as partner to the Hutts, eclipsing every other criminal organization in that part of the galaxy. It was worth more than a little risk.

“Lord Isamer!” one of the sensor jockeys called. “A T-1 shuttlecraft has emerged from hyperspace, seventy radii distance.”

Isamer’s fur stood on end in anticipation. His fanged smile widened as he said, “Call to them from Cassel’s ship.” The wreckage of that ship lay broken across the planetoid’s surface, but his lieutenants had managed to salvage the communications array. At least they got one thing right. “Plead for their help. Lure them in.”

Cohmac pulled himself from a daydream, mentally repeating, Focus.

It hadn’t been a bad daydream—just one in which he was dueling brilliantly with his lightsaber, the kind of detailed imagining that could actually improve real performance. But that was a practice for meditation. He had to improve his ability to live wholly in the present, as Master Simmix constantly reminded him.

At first he thought he’d done well to pull himself from his reverie, but then he realized it had been the comm panel lighting up with an incoming signal.

Orla and Cohmac exchanged glances as the voice came through: “Monarch Cassel—in distress, attempted abduction—systems failing—”

The code signature of the signal confirmed that it was Cassel’s ship. Orla responded immediately. “The Jedi are on our way. Hold on!”

Should they have double-checked the signal first? That seemed like a minor detail, one Cohmac didn’t dwell upon. He simply steered in the direction of the signal. “So at least one of the hostages got away. Does that make our mission easier or more complicated?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Orla replied. They exchanged smiles. As different in temperament as they were—Cohmac always turning within, Orla always leaping ahead—they’d been friendly since the creche and were equally eager to begin their mission in earnest.

Within moments, some sort of planetoid appeared in the distance—one so small and remote it didn’t even have a name. Cohmac punched in the shuttle’s approach vectors without a second thought.

Then Master Laret hurried onto the bridge. She, like Master Simmix, had been deep in meditative trance; Cohmac had expected to go rouse them both. But something had brought Master Laret to awareness, and then to alarm. “What’s happening?” she said.

“Monarch Cassel must have escaped,” Orla began. “We got a confirmed signal from his ship—”

“From his ship,” Master Laret said grimly. “Not from Monarch Cassel.”

Cohmac and Orla exchanged uncertain glances. Too late, Cohmac felt a shiver in the Force—the eerie dissonance that meant not all was as it seemed—

And then outer space itself seemed to blaze with light, and the ship shook and twisted, and there was no up or down anymore, no way to stop, no way out.