"Seal the other exits!" one of the traitorous Wing Guards said.
"Hey, you"re supposed to be the good guys!" Lando bellowed.
"What are you doing?" More blaster fire cut off further discussion.
"It was a setup," Zekk said through gritted teeth. "We were lured here.
These must be hit men, paid off by Black Sun."
Lando grumbled, "There"s something rotten in Cloud City."
They ducked into the shadows, taking shelter behind crates. "At least we"ve got plenty of places to hide," Jaina said.
"They didn"t think very well before they planned this ambush," Anja said, crouching beside her.
Lando shook his head and frowned. "Maybe not, but if they"ve got the exits covered, we have no place else to go. They can take their time."
They heard the marching of booted feet as more turncoat security forces entered the construction area and barricaded the doors. Jaina wiped perspiration from her hand and gripped her lightsaber more securely, ready for hand-to-hand battle.
"Maybe we could climb up," Zekk suggested, "find some way out the top to a higher level."
Jaina looked up toward the nest of girders and hover-scaffolding, trying to scout out an escape hatch-but she suddenly realized that the thick building frames were moving, as if alive. She saw the flickering shadow of a humanoid shape as something scuttled down, crawling like an insect.
"More of those chameleon creatures!" Jaina said, remembering the murderous henchmen that had attacked them in the docking bay on Ord Mantell. Though foiled in their a.s.sa.s.sination attempt, the chameleon creatures had stolen the evidence of the s.p.a.ce mines that had nearly destroyed the Millennium Falcon. Jaina drew a deep breath as it hit her: even that must have been part of a complicated Black Sun plot.
"Now I know what Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Lowie felt like when the a.s.sa.s.sinscornered them down in Port Town," Jaina said. "This time we get all the excitement while they attend their little meeting."
"Well," Lando said. "With these traitorous Wing Guards here, I don"t believe anything is as it seems. I hope they"re safe."
Another volley of blaster bolts erupted, and Lando ducked as sparks flew overhead. The deadly chameleon creatures scrambled closer, surrounding their prey, closing the trap.
"Right now, let"s just worry about ourselves," he said.
When Jacen arrived with Tenel Ka and Lowie at the address for the supposed debriefing facility, they found only an empty hangar dock filled with old-model cloud cars and other small sky vehicles waiting for repair.
"There"s n.o.body here," Jacen said.
Tenel Ka looked around. "Are you certain this is the correct location?"
Jacen checked again. "This is where they told us to come."
"Indeed, I can verify that," Em Teedee added, though no one had asked him.
Lowie sniffed the air. His black Wookiee nose wrinkled, and he let out a low, uneasy groan.
"Something is not right here," Tenel Ka said.
"Hey-this is afact," Jacen agreed with forced humor. Tenel Ka and Lowie unconsciously moved closer to him, as if preparing for battle.
The outer bay doors were open wide, and clouds stretched out in a vast empty skyscape, tall gray thunderheads rising above the white ritists far below. Judging from the weather patterns, Jacen suspected that heavy storms would strike the floating city before the day was out.
The three went deeper into the docking bay, looking around, growing more uncertain by the moment. "We"d better check with someone," Jacen said.
Lowie stopped by two of the cloud cars, bent over, and touched their control panels. One was painted a rich blue, the other a bright scarlet.
Both were typical recreational vehicles, cloud cars that had been souped up and probably used for races or sky patrols.
Lowie grumbled something, and Em Teedee scolded him. "Master Lowbacca, these are not our vehicles. It"s of no concern to us that they are still functional. We"re going to be late for our debriefing."
"We are here," Tenel Ka pointed out. "The others are not."
Jacen glanced at Lowie. "Hey, maybe you and Jaina could tinker with some of those things later. Lando could probably get them for us cheap, if they"re just sitting here, decommissioned."
Tenel Ka, her reflexes coiled like an overwound spring, suddenly whirled about. In the only entrance to the cloud-car bay were the hairyfaced bounty hunter and the slime-dripping alien from the first attempt on their lives. Beside them stood two Wing Guard security policemen.
"Hey, you caught them," Jacen said to the Wing Guards, thinking that this was part of the debriefing: identifying two of the hit men who had attacked them. "Those are the ones who tried to kill us."
"I say! If those men have been arrested, why are they all carrying their own weapons?" Em Teedee said, as the Wing Guards and the two hit men hauled out their blaster rifles.
Lowie roared in outrage.
"We have been betrayed," Tenel Ka said.
Jacen backed up, holding his hands in front of him to prove he had no weapons. Only a few meters behind them stretched the open entrance to the cloud-car bay and another immense drop.
"Just keep backing up until you"re over the edge," the slimedripping killer said with a chuckle. "Save us some energy in our blaster packs."
"Not again," Jacen said with a groan. Lowie snarled. Tenel Ka reached for her lightsaber.
"Don"t make us shoot you down right where you stand," said one of the Wing Guards. "That would leave us with quite a mess to clean up."
Thinking quickly, Lowbacca swept out with one ginger-furred arm and knocked Jacen into the nearest cloud car. He roared and pointed for Tenel Ka to leap into the scarlet vessel beside Jacen, while the Wookiee scrambled into the blue cloud car.
"Duck!" Jacen called, squirming to right himself inside the cramped pile; t seat. Tenel Ka bent down and fired up the engines as she wriggled into her own seat beside him. Lowie roared his blue vehicle into motion while the surprised security men cried out and rushed into the room after them.
Blaster bolts rang out, one sizzling and ricocheting off the scarlet paint near Jacen"s head. He fumbled with the cloud-car controls and adjusted the dials to their maximum output.
"Punch it, Lowie!" he called to his Wookiee friend as the four killers ran toward them, howling and firing indiscriminately.
With a lurch, Jacen"s cloud car blasted out into the open sky and spun in a full circle. He and Tenel Ka nearly tumbled out of their seats, but they managed to bring the car under control and fasten their crash restraints in time.
With a b.e.s.t.i.a.l roar, Lowie careened out of the hangar bay in the second cloud car, a blue streak across the sky. Jacen wrestled with the controls and soared onward at full speed. He breathed a great sigh of relief.
"I guess they didn"t count on our alternatives," Jacen said.
Tenel Ka twisted around to look behind her at the gleaming white metropolis in the clouds. "It does not appear that we are safe just yet, Jacen, my friend," she said.
Not far behind them, they could see that the thugs had helped themselves to a pair of cloud cars, newer and brighter than the ones the young Jedi Knights had found. The killers raced after them in hot pursuit.
Surrounded by the clutter of girders and construction debris, Jaina gripped her extinguished lightsaber, wishing she dared turn it on again to light their way. But for now the tangled darkness offered them places to hide from the turncoat security guards who still hunted the four companions in the abandoned amus.e.m.e.nt park site. Overhead, however, chameleon creatures scrambled along catwalks and crossbeams, keeping an eye on them as they fled.
Luckily, the chameleon creatures carried neither blaster pistols nor stunners. Instead, they brandished wicked-looking transparent knives with blades fashioned from crystal shards.
Since the creatures were nearly invisible, Jaina had a difficult time counting the camouflaged enemies, but she caught glimpses of the smooth forms as colors and shadows shifted across their bodies. Their cruel lipless mouths grinned as they approached their prey.
"Oh, why didn"t I carry my own hold-out blaster?" Lando muttered.
"Ever since I became respectable, I stopped packing weapons."
Zekk commiserated with him. "Right now I wish I had a lightsaber, too...
even my old one from the Shadow Academy."
"We"ll just play hide-and-seek as long as we can." Anja seemed more angry than afraid at the prospect of the creatures" attack.
Jaina gritted her teeth as they hurried along. "Looks like we women"ll have to defend you men."
"We"ll do our best to help out," Zekk said, flashing her a grim smile.
"Somehow or other."
The pack of chameleon a.s.sa.s.sins made soft thumping sounds as they swarmed along the girders above. Lando and his three companions dashed under the twisted superstructure of the enormous looping hovercoaster.
????? it was the most ma.s.sive part of the amus.e.m.e.nt park; the heavy beams and bent durasteel framework loomed high above them like a fossilized prehistoric creature.
"We can"t hide under here," Anja said, ducking as a brilliant bolt zinged past her face. She fired up her acid-yellow blade.
"I don"t know where else to go," Lando replied. More blaster fire rang out from the shadows as security guards marched into the enclosed s.p.a.ce, targeting Anja"s bright lightsaber now. "If you have any suggestions, I"m all ears."
Jaina gazed up at the chameleon creatures slinking along the hovercoaster above them. Their sharp crystal blades twinkled, reflecting the dim emergency lights. Skins rippled and flickered, adjusting their camouflage, as the creatures gathered their forces overhead. Although viciously armed, the chameleons seemed to be relative cowards, unwilling to attack until they had ma.s.sed for a single strike.
Jaina intended to use that to her advantage. "Everybody stand back," she said. "And dive for cover." She stood up, switched on her blazing violet lightsaber, and held it high.
"Wait!" Lando called. "What are you going to-" The Wing Guards shouted and ran toward them.
"What are you waiting for?" Zekk said. Jaina slashed sideways.
Her dazzling lightsaber blade sliced through the main pillar that supported the central section of the hovercoaster. The energy-blade severed the heavy durasteel brace as easily as if it were a hot knife slicing through Ithorian sap gelatin. She stood back to look at the smoking, sizzling ends of the huge support beam. As if in slow motion, she saw the metal begin to slide. The hovercoaster tilted.
"Look out!" she cried, and dove for a pile of heavy crates.
Anja and Zekk had already scrambled backward. Lando stared in horror.
"My hovercoaster!" he cl.u.s.tered chameleon creatures skittered about, scrambling for balance. Suddenly the entire framework toppled beneath them, groaning, bending, twisting.
Jaina looked up, shielding her eyes against any debris that might fall in their direction. The smooth-skinned creatures tumbled downward, shaken loose from their precarious perches. Their skin color shifted as they tried to match the color of the air through which they fell.
Girders groaned and crumpled. With a resounding crash, the central section of the hovercoaster slammed down onto the deckplates.
"That"s just great," Lando said, astounded. "Now I"m even more behind schedule."
Showing no consideration whatsoever in response to his financial plight, the traitorous Cloud City security troops opened fire again, running toward the scene of the crash.
"We"ve got them now," bellowed one deep voice.
As Lowbacca roared across the sky in his commandeered blue cloud car, he hooked sharply off to the left, intentionally veering far away from Jacen and Tenel Ka. Separating and causing their pursuers to split up seemed their best chance of escape.
"Master Lowbacca, what do you think you"re doing?" Em Teedee said shrilly.
Lowie jerked the controls and accelerated even more, spinning around in a sideways loop as the pursuing hit men fired their weapons.
The bolts sizzled through the air, and Lowie"s sensitive nose could smell the ionization drifting up, a taint of ozone and other burned gases from Bespin"s atmosphere. The blue cloud car lurched from one side to another, letting the bolts pa.s.s harmlessly beneath the hull.
"You realize, of course, that you"re not licensed to pilot this craft,"
Em Teedee continued. "You have no training. We"re all doomed!"
Lowie barked a warning.
"How do you expect me to be quiet? This is an emergency!" the little droid wailed, but when Lowie growled that every small distraction would increase their likelihood of crashing, Em Teedee promptly fell silent and blinked his optical sensors with internal misery.
As Lowie soared along, though, his sensitive ears detected a flutter in the cloud car"s engine. The craft may well have been unused for months or even years, and it was severely out of tune. With one glance he confirmed that he had very little fuel as well.
He looked behind at the single predatory craft that still followed.
Inside it, the slime-dripping alien and one Wing Guard pushed closer, firing their weapons. Unfortunately, their vehicle did not appear to have the least bit of engine trouble.
Lowie ducked and looped, then finally spun around and headed back toward Cloud City. Maybe someone would see the dogfight. Maybe he could get some help there.... Of course, since some important members of Cloud City"s own infrastructure were out to kill the young Jedi Knights, he wasn"t sure he could trust any offer of a.s.sistance.
In the clouds and rising tendrils of mists he saw no place to hide.
Lowie"s cloud-car engine popped and sputtered again. He wrestled for control as the vehicle suddenly began losing alt.i.tude. The engine picked up again and he climbed... but during the brief interval he had lost most of his lead. His pursuers came right behind him. The roar of their engines filled his ears.
He ducked his head as a blast streaked directly above him, so close that it singed his ginger fur. Lowie did what he could, accelerating, punching all the controls in an attempt to find some kind of emergency override.
Then, with a disheartening pop, the hum of the turbines dropped to a lower pitch. The engines barely managed to keep the cloud car moving along. Lowie growled in despair.
Suddenly the hunters were right beside him.
Lowie searched for some kind of weapon, but the vehicle he had commandeered was no more than a pleasure craft, a skyskimmer used for racing among the clouds-and even as a racer, this cloud car wasn"t much good. He hoped he had at least bought enough time for Jacen and Tenel Ka to escape in their own cloud car.
Beside him, the slimy a.s.sa.s.sin and the treacherous guard leveled their handheld blasters at Lowie. He knew that they had no intention of letting him survive.
With his cloud car failing and unable to outrun them, with no other weapon, Lowie let loose a huge Wookiee roar at them. He flashed his fangs and snarled loudly enough that even his uncle Chewbacca would have been proud.
Just then, shadows pa.s.sed overhead. Great wings flapped as creatures swooped and ducked. The slime-dripping alien looked up and instinctively fired his blaster, though the bolt went wide. Within moments, seven great thrantas circled the pursuing cloud car, sweeping down.
The painted riders on the thrantas called to each other in a strange high-pitched language, shouting orders to set up a routine, as if it were mere practice for their sky rodeo. The thrantas flitted under the pursuing cloud car now. One of the flying creatures b.u.mped against it, sending it into a spin.