The sky patrol craft cruised into view, circling the cloud, scanning the horizons for Aurra Sing. Little did its pilot know that the pursuer had become the pursued, and that Aurra Sing was preparing an ambush.
Holding his breath, Boba watched the sky patrol craft drift past the cloud. Any moment now, there would be a blast of laser fire, and the broken pieces and shattered crew of the patrol craft would fall slowly into the depths of Bespin"s atmosphere, where they would all be crushed flat, lost forever in the toxic soup of heavy gases.
Good riddance! Boba thought. Then, as the craft drew nearer, he saw who was in it. There at the controls was a Bespin pilot while Glynn-Beti gave orders. Beside her was Ulu Ulix, and beside him, Garr.
So it was Garr who betrayed me! Garr must have told the Jedi everything! But still... my friend. No doubt thinking this would help...
A few more meters and they would all be in Aurra Sing"s sights.
There was no time to think. Boba pushed the ring forward and dove, faster and faster. He cut in front of the patrol ship, surprising it and throwing it off course, just as Aurra Sing"s laser bolt fired
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
- and missed, by centimeters.
The little cloud car might have been small, but it was also amazingly fast. With the sky patrol craft in pursuit, Boba dove down under the city and threaded the cloud car into the forests of dangling algae, where it was all but invisible among the thousands of strands some of which were hundreds of meters long.
The patrol craft was right behind. After a quick look around, though, it left, presumably to resume the search for Aurra Sing. Wonder if they know I saved their lives, Boba thought. He didn"t regret it, though he wondered if it had been the smart thing to do. If he had let Aurra Sing blow them to pieces, he would perhaps be with her now, in Slave I.
Now, here he was in the weeds. Nowhere, with nowhere to go. A ten-year-old boy in a stolen craft. No money, no friends; he didn"t even have his precious flight bag. What was that?
Boba wasn"t the only one hiding in the weeds. Slave I was cruising through, slipping silently among the hanging fronds. Was Aurra Sing hiding from the sky patrol craft or chasing it? It was impossible to tell.
The cloud car had no comm unit. But what did it matter? Boba was sure Aurra Sing wouldn"t talk to him anyway. She was convinced he had betrayed her - and even though she was wrong to think he had told the Jedi where to find her, he had betrayed her by spoiling her ambush.
If she sees me, she"ll run. Or worse, blast me.
If only I could sneak up on her, Boba thought. And then, watching her drift slowly toward the edge of the platform, he thought of a way that he could.
Keeping the cloud car hidden in the hanging fronds, he followed Slave I across the underside of the abandoned city. It was clear now that Aurra Sing was hiding from the Jedi. She was hovering, barely using her jets. Had she lost her nerve?
Boba knew that as soon as the Jedi were gone, she would be hitting her turbos, blasting for s.p.a.ce.
If this is going to work, I have to make my move now, he thought.
It meant taking a chance, but Boba was getting good at taking chances.
She was drifting past. Boba waited, with his hand on the edge of the cloud car"s open c.o.c.kpit, until Slave I was directly underneath.
Then he stood up.
And stepped over the edge, into the open air.
As he fell, slowly at first, then faster and faster, Boba watched the ship below.
It was tiny; Bespin was huge.
If he missed, he would fall for a thousand kilometers, until his skull cracked in on itself like an egg.
If he missed, but he hadn"t allowed for the sideways drift of Slave I. He only missed by a few meters. He saw the shock on Aurra Sing"s face when she saw him fall past. He could only imagine the look of horror that she saw on his.
Then he heard the WHOOSH as she fired her turbos, and dove underneath him. He heard the click/whrrr as she opened the entryway and positioned herself beneath him, like a net.
000MPH! Boba hit on the flight bag he had thrown in earlier; the battle helmet and the book made it hard as a rock.
The entryway closed.
Safe! Boba grinned - until he saw Aurra Sing"s scowl.
"If I didn"t know you were the son of Jango Fett," she said, "I would swear you were trying to keep the Jedi alive by spoiling my little surprises."
"I just want my ship back," said Boba. "I don"t care who you kill."
That was a sort of lie - Boba didn"t want her killing Garr, or even Ulu.
But it was close enough.
"Fair enough," said Aurra Sing. "So let"s switch seats."
"Huh?"
"You know how to fly this thing, right? And I"m a better shot than you. We"re going to have to work together to get out of here."
Boba didn"t have to be told twice. Picking up his flight bag, he scrambled forward to the pilot"s chair. It felt good to have his hands back on the familiar controls of Slave 1.
"Now take us up and out. Let"s see if our friends are still there."
They were.
K-RANG! KA-RANG!.
Boba dodged laser bolts from two sides. The sky patrol craft had been joined by starfighters from the Candaserri. This was their chance to catch the bounty hunter who had attacked so many Jedi.
Aurra Sing fired back, but the shots were wild. Boba threw the little ship into a roll, and dove into a cloud.
"Let"s grab some vacuum!" Aurra Sing said. "Head for s.p.a.ce."
"Not with those starfighters on our tail!" Boba shouted. "There"s no place to hide up there." He had counted at least four from the Candaserri. The Jedi had called for reinforcements, and gotten them.
"Well, we"re not exactly invisible here!" Aurra Sing yelled back.
"We"re surrounded - and there"s a storm coming. These Bespin storms are deadly."
Maybe that can work to our advantage, Boba thought.
He checked the radar imagery. There it was - a monster storm, towering from the bottom levels of the atmosphere, all the way to the lower reaches of s.p.a.ce. It was streaked with lightning, and it spun like a supersonic top.
"Hang on!" Boba cried. He spun Slave 1 out of the cloud, into the middle of the waiting Jedi starfighters.
KA-RANG!.
KA-RANG!.
Boba threw the little ship into a shimmy, dodging laser bolts as it streaked across Bespin"s cloud-stacked sky, with four - no, six - no, eight! - starfighters and a Cloud City sky patrol tight on its tail.
"Now you"ve done it!" cried Aurra Sing. "They"ve all seen us."
"Not for long," said Boba, thinking of his father as he headed straight for the lightning-st.i.tched storm cloud. "n.o.body follows where we"re going!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
Total darkness.
Then blinding light.
Slave I shook and spun and creaked and groaned.
The turbos were useless. Nothing could, match the power of the storm. The ship went where the storm sent it, which was down, down, down - -.
Slave I was designed to withstand the high vacuum of outer s.p.a.ce, not the tremendous atmospheric pressures of a gas giant like Bespin. A crack appeared in the c.o.c.kpit canopy; Boba smelled an acrid, toxic stench.
"We"re breaking up!" cried Aurra Sing. "I thought we were heading for s.p.a.ce!"
"Me too," answered Boba.
Both their voices were soon drowned out by, the screaming of the wind. Boba stood the ship on end and hit the turbos, holding on for dear life. Slave I shook, it rattled, it rolled and spun and tumbled end over end. The lightning crashed over them in huge breaking waves, like a surf of light.
Boba saw: Aurra Sing"s face reflected in the viewscreen, and for the first time she looked more terrified than angry. The sight scared him. He knew that he looked even more scared.
Then, suddenly, it was over.
The silence was more terrifying than the noise. Boba knew that he was dead - he saw stars everywhere.
Cold, tiny, silent stars.
"We made it," said Aurra Sing. "Good flying - for a dumb kid."
Boba didn"t bother to answer. He was weak with relief. They had made it. Slave I was in s.p.a.ce. The plucky little starship had climbed the spinning walls of the storm, all the way into orbit around Bespin. No one had dared follow.
"We need to talk," said Boba. He was exhausted, but he felt a new confidence. "This is my ship. I want it back. Now."
"Later," said Aurra Sing, laughing. "There are other planets in this system where we"ll be less conspicuous. Unless you want to wait here for the Candaserri to spot us?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
"Your father and I were not exactly friends," said Aurra Sing, once they were in orbit around dark planet; a sister to Bespin which was still visible as a tiny globe in the distance. "Bounty hunters don"t have friends. But I respected him. He was the real thing. No sentimental attachments, no loyalties."
"Like you?" Boba asked.
"Sort of - and sort of like, you," Aurra Sing went on. "You"re developing some of his better qualities. Not that I care. Our paths have only crossed out of my necessity."
Boba wondered what this meant. "Let"s, uncross them, then," he said. "This is my ship. Pick a planet, and I"ll put you off; we"ll say farewell," "And good riddance, too," said Aurra. Sing.
"But first we have a job to do together. You and me and your father, Jango Fett."
"My father?"
"He was richer than anyone realized. He left credits and treasure stashed all over the galaxy. It"s yours, Boba. All you have to do is pick it up."
"Where?" Boba asked. His heart was pounding with excitement.
Aurra Sing smiled. "Several places. I happen to know where they all are. That"s why we"re a team. I have the coordinates and you have the codes."
"Codes? I don"t have any codes."
"Your DNA and retinal scans are the codes. Your father made sure the treasure could only be accessed by his son."
"Why should I trust you? How do you know all this?" Boba asked.
"You already stole my ship once, and betrayed me to Dooku."
"Trust me? You"d be a fool to trust me. Do you think I trust you?!
You"re Jango Fett"s son, after all. We"re going to get the treasure and split it, fifty-fifty. That"s it, kid. Then you"re on your own."
"Fifty-fifty? But it"s mine!" Boba wondered if he would even see the fifty she was promising.
Aurra Sing smiled. "What choice do you have? Unless you want to wait for someone else to find the treasure."
Boba also wondered if Aurra Sing knew that Jango Fett had tens of thousands of sons. Does she know that all she has to do is kidnap a clone trooper? But what was that his dad used to tell him? That he was the only unaltered clone?