Octa knew Valin"s preferred tactics as well as he did. He needed to bank and roll, cause her to drop off. But, halfway emerged through an irregular aperture, he couldn"t, not yet-to do so would mangle or even tear free the starfighter"s strike foils, turning the X-wing into an expensive, uncomfortable, ugly airspeeder.
Instead, Valin grimaced and eased the yoke forward, emerging two more meters into the predawn air.
Octa got her offhand onto her lightsaber and managed to unclip it. She ignited it and thrust with the weapon at the canopy-not at Valin, but at the point closest to her right arm, where the canopy dogged into place against the fuselage.
The point of her weapon, driven at an awkward angle by her less practiced hand, skidded off the transparisteel and up, inflicting nothing but a scar on the canopy.
She tried again. Valin, timing his action by her attack, punched the thrusters just a little, throwing her off balance. She did not fall off, but the energy blade punched through the canopy centimeters behind the latch. The blade, just above Valin"s hands on the yoke, hit the far side of the canopy and burned through there, too.
Now the X-wing was fully extracted from the hangar door. Valin gave Octa a mocking smile, elevated the starfighter"s nose, and opened the thrusters full force. The X-wing shot upward at a steep takeoff angle.
Octa felt her right hand slipping across the fuselage. She slid farther down the side of the c.o.c.kpit, wildly waving her left arm and the lightsaber in it for balance, and then tried another blow. Her attack had no accuracy or leverage; it hit the canopy over Valin"s face, well away from her intended point of impact, and again left nothing but a scar.
Valin should have been rolling the X-wing by now, but he did not, and Octa lost a precious second or two trying to figure out why.
Then she understood. He"s taking me as high as he can ... so I"ll die when I hit ground He"s taking me as high as he can ... so I"ll die when I hit ground. She took a moment to look around, but of course there were no speeders below or close by-unauthorized traffic was forbidden this close to the Senate Building, and authorized traffic was rare at this hour.
Valin gave her a last look of triumph. He twitched the yoke and the X-wing shuddered. Octa"s hand slipped free and she fell.
She felt a touch of regret. Force techniques to slow falling were of little use in open air at alt.i.tudes like this. She was going to be a mess, a dead mess, when she hit.
She deactivated her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt. It wouldn"t do to have it shear through some innocent pedestrian running in the wake of the shuttle, which, now burning, had come to a rest against the government building on the far side of the plaza.
Octa prepared herself for impact.
When Octa woke up, she knew only moments had pa.s.sed. The Senate Building alarms were still howling. Sirens announced the imminent arrival of other official vehicles. There was also a persistent ringing in her head.
She didn"t hurt that badly. Quickly, carefully, she flexed limbs, shifted her body, explored herself in the Force.
Not even a broken bone.
She opened her eyes and Seha, framed by stars, was kneeling over her, looking worried, crestfallen. "Master?"
"I"m all right." Octa struggled to sit up. Well, she wasn"t entirely all right. Every muscle hurt and she was certain she had a concussion. "You caught me? With telekinesis?"
"Partly. You still hit hard."
"Not that hard." Octa managed a shaky laugh. "You did very, very well."
"But we lost. He got away."
"We won won. He"s in street clothes and his canopy isn"t airtight. So he can"t make s.p.a.ce. And he"s airborne, so his tracking device will give away his location continuously. We flushed him." Standing, she stretched her back, trying to afford it a little relief. "Others will have to run him to ground."
"COME TO COURSE TWO-SIX-NINE."
Han, following his wife"s directions, banked the Falcon Falcon around and headed toward the government district. Leia, in the copilot"s seat, had her personal comlink to her ear. around and headed toward the government district. Leia, in the copilot"s seat, had her personal comlink to her ear.
The Falcon Falcon"s comm board was alive with Coruscant Security and traffic monitors warning Han to return to designated ship traffic lanes or be subject to arrest. He growled and switched the thing to silent mode. "They found him?"
"They found him. He"s in an X-wing with a hole in the c.o.c.kpit."
"Armed?"
"Fiftyfifty chance. It was in the Senate Building, so it"s either a fully functional security vehicle or some Senator"s unarmed memories-of-youth vehicle. I"m hoping for the second option."
"Me, too."
"Come to two-five-nine."
"Nah." Han put the Falcon Falcon into a dive. His stomach fluttered, and the sensor screen filled up with tiny objects getting larger-smallvehicle traffic at and below building-top level. Flashing down at terrifying and illegal speed, he twitched the controls right and left, nimbly dodging the much smaller civilian vehicles. into a dive. His stomach fluttered, and the sensor screen filled up with tiny objects getting larger-smallvehicle traffic at and below building-top level. Flashing down at terrifying and illegal speed, he twitched the controls right and left, nimbly dodging the much smaller civilian vehicles.
"Han, what do you think-"
Then he was fully among them, streams of traffic above as well as below. He pulled out of his dive two hundred meters below the average height of the buildings.
"-you"re doing?"
"This way, we"re off the major sensor boards. Only vehicles with line of sight on us will complain."
"I understand that that. I mean, why not turn to two-five-nine?"
"His course changes are just to jerk us around, to confuse us. I I know where he"s going." know where he"s going."
"Where?"
"The s.p.a.ceport, right at the edge of the government district. He stole a starfighter; that means he wants to make s.p.a.ce. It"s damaged, so he can"t. He needs another one. Right?"
"Right."
"When it comes to piloting and pilots, I"m all-knowing."
Leia put an artificial sweetness into her voice. "I"ll never argue with you again."
Han snorted and increased velocity. A Coruscant Security speeder following in his wake dropped back, left behind as though it were suddenly standing still.
Luke and Ben, in Ben"s nimble red airspeeder, received the transmission with Han"s guess about the s.p.a.ceport.
Luke, at the controls, shook his head, not pleased. The s.p.a.ceport, comparatively flat and built at a much lower alt.i.tude than the surrounding residential, business, and government zones, was not, as most supposed, actually situated at bedrock level. Below it were many levels of machinery, repair hangars, Empire-era emergency bunkers, s.p.a.ceport employee facilities, and repair accesses.
If Han was right and Valin was headed that way, even if he was unsuccessful at stealing another s.p.a.ceworthy vehicle he might escape into those subterranean regions, making it hard or impossible to find him before he detected his tracking device and destroyed it.
Their speeder emerged from the skytowers and was abruptly out over the flatter region surrounding the s.p.a.ceport. It was mostly given over to speeder parking, though it had decorative elements, including tree-spotted gra.s.sy regions and a small artificial lake.
And sensor stations. Almost immediately, the speeder"s comm board began blaring with instructions for them to turn back, to stay away from restricted airs.p.a.ce.
"Tell them who we are." Luke had to raise his voice to a shout to be heard.
"I bet it doesn"t work. Who"s on the news as a criminal suspect? You are."
"Do it anyway." Luke put the speeder into a holding pattern, keeping close to the ring of skytowers, not approaching the port itself. The authorities might well decide to shoot down a suspicious speeder-piloted by a suspected criminal or not-heading straight toward an invaluable government and civilian transportation resource. Sabotage and terror attacks had taken place as recently as the war, two years earlier.
Ben looked up from the comm board, startled. "We"re not the only ones."
"What?" Luke scanned the airs.p.a.ce above the s.p.a.ceport.
There were a lot lot of small vehicles there now, most of them airspeeders of one size or another. Some were bigger business vehicles, many with lettering and symbols on the sides. of small vehicles there now, most of them airspeeders of one size or another. Some were bigger business vehicles, many with lettering and symbols on the sides.
From the utility compartment, Ben pulled out a pair of macro-binoculars and held them to his eyes. "That one"s a press vehicle. Turret-mounted holocam on top. That one-hey, that"s Jaina. The big green one-oh, kriff."
"Language. What is it?"
"It has an oversized driver"s cab and that Skakoan is in it."
Luke frowned. Suddenly everyone knew that Valin was coming here, including press and bounty hunters. That meant open comm channels were being monitored, and people with no business being here were up to date. Daala"s people had to be doing this.
Then he saw it, almost at ground level, an X-wing painted in cla.s.sic First Galactic Civil War grays. Its running lights were off; it was illuminated only by the glows from parking area pole lights-it flew beneath the alt.i.tude of the lights themselves.
"Hold on." Luke pushed his control yoke forward, sending the speeder into a precipitous dive.
Ben"s lips were drawn back in a grimace-perhaps because no teenager wants anyone else to endanger his vehicle recklessly, that being the teenager"s own prerogative-but said, "Falcon"s incoming."
"Good." Luke put the speeder on an intercept course, or a collision course if anything went wrong, and switched the autopilot on. He unlatched his seat restraints and slid toward Ben. "Take the controls."
He was gratified to see his son"s eyes open wide, but Ben did as he was told; the boy unbuckled, slid under his father, grabbed the controls, disengaged the autopilot.
Luke stood up in the seat, drawing on the Force to keep him pinned in place despite the rush of wind threatening to tear him free.
He counted on Ben to know what to do, and his son did not let him down. Ben leveled off at the same alt.i.tude as the X-wing, completing his maneuver just meters behind the starfighter, and drew alongside that vehicle"s port side.
Luke sprang across the gap separating his seat from the c.o.c.kpit. The wind threatened to whip him away, but a boost of Force energy carried him to the fuselage just as Valin Horn was realizing he had a pace vehicle. Luke landed astride the nose, facing astern, staring straight down into Valin"s startled features.
Valin yanked up on the X-wing"s armrests. The canopy was suddenly open, snapping backward, and gone, and Valin hurtled into the sky, his pilot"s chair propelled by a crude one-use rocket.
"Stang! He punched out." Han pounded his steering yoke.
Leia looked as aggravated as Han felt. "Can the cargo tractor beam-"
"Not strong enough. Can"t compensate for a fast-moving target."
"We have to go after Valin, then."
Han shook his head. "The ejection won"t have left enough controls for Luke to land the X-wing. He may be able to lift it or push it down with the Force ... but land it with no controls? No. We have to help him." He heeled over, diving toward the X-wing.
"He punched out." Jaina reluctantly turned her attention from Luke, disappearing toward the s.p.a.ceport on the uncontrolled X-wing, and returned it to Valin, still ascending in his ejection seat. She banked and headed toward the rogue Jedi.
In the pa.s.senger seat, Master Kyle Katarn, about Luke"s age, dark-haired and dark-bearded, stretched as if coming out of a nap. "You plan to maneuver underneath and catch him?"
"That"s right."
Katarn pointed toward another speeder, a large, flatbed cargo hauler with figures standing in the cargo bed. This vehicle rose toward Valin"s position from a much nearer position. "So do they."
Valin"s seat reached its maximum alt.i.tude and began dropping. Immediately the short-term repulsor within the seat activated, slowing his descent.
He felt as though he"d taken a tremendous blow to the top of his head, doing no damage to it but compressing the spine beneath. Ejections were always like that-bad, but better than the alternative.
And he"d always relish the look on Not-Luke"s face when he"d ejected. It had been priceless.
A cargo hauler maneuvered itself toward his descent path. Grumbling, he got his lightsaber into one hand, grabbing his seat restraint buckle with the other.
As the hauler came underneath, instead of waiting for the seat to touch down, Valin unbuckled the restraints and flipped forward, landing on his feet moments before the seat landed.
In the cargo bed, three individuals waited-a Quarren with a vastly oversized weapon, a shining droid whose construction bore a slight resemblance to a human skeleton, and a tall blond woman whose black bantha-hide jacket was decorated with a vast number of claws and teeth in different sizes and colors, sewn in place; she carried a Wookiee bowcaster.
Valin smiled at them, but not in a friendly way. "Two maladjusted want-to-be bounty hunters and their dressed-up protocol droid."
"Surrender," the Quarren said. "It will hurt less." He raised his preposterous weapon to his shoulder.
"Jump into a fire." Valin all but ignored the two organic beings. He kept his attention on the droid-a YVH 1 combat droid, one of the most dangerous machines to be found anywhere.
Now even machines were giving him a bad feeling. And he could detect a life-form heading toward him from straight above- He glanced upward to see a speeder car pa.s.sing by overhead, and boot heels, flapping Jedi robes, and an illuminated lightsaber descending toward him at a normal falling rate.
In his lower peripheral vision, he saw the three bounty hunters glance up to spot the descending Jedi. Valin took the opportunity to act: he grabbed his abandoned ejection seat and leapt with it off the rear end of the cargo hauler.
Jaina landed in a crouch just where Valin had been standing. He was gone. She rose to glower at the bounty hunters. "Don"t bother."
"We"re not here to harm you," the YVH droid said, its tones utterly and confidently human.
Jaina stared at the thing, nonplussed. "Just what have you been programmed for?"
She felt a tickle in the Force, warning of imminent attack, and saw the Quarren"s finger tighten on the trigger. She jumped to one side as he fired.
It did her no good. The missile that emerged from the weapon immediately flared out into a haze that wrapped around her, clinging everywhere-it took her a fraction of a second to recognize it as a metal-mesh net trailing some sort of cylindrical package.
Then the first jolt of electrical pain hit her. Startled, suddenly separated from her Force powers, she sailed over the edge of the cargo hauler and dropped into empty s.p.a.ce beyond.
Valin clung to the ejection seat and rode it down another twenty meters. The next vehicle to approach him held no ersatz Jedi, no imposters that he could see-it was a boxy blue speeder, the Galaxy 9 News logo painted on its side in yellow. It drew alongside, its pilot skillfully keeping pace with Valin"s rate of descent.
A dark-skinned woman leaned out the pa.s.senger-side window. "Jedi Horn! Is it true you"re on a destructive rampage?"
Valin leapt from his seat, slamming into the side of the speeder, holding on to the woman"s door to keep from falling. She drew back, startled, but he gave her a friendly smile. "Get me out of here, away from these people, and I"ll give you the greatest scoop you"ve ever had."
The woman"s eyes widened. She turned to issue a brief command to her pilot, then turned back, all smiles. "Let me help you in ..."