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Jax turned away, clipping the weapon’s hilt to his belt.

“Hey,” the avian said. “What about me?”

“You can stay cuffed,” Jax replied, “until we get to know you a little better.”

The avian seemed about to protest, then closed his beak-like mouth with an annoyed click.

“Pretty amazing show,” Den said, rubbing his posterior. “Can’t say I was really all that glad to be ringside, though …”

Before anyone else could say anything, Jax, alerted by peripheral vision, looked over to the shattered transparisteel. I-Five was climbing up from below.

“Good news and bad news,” he said, before anyone could speak. “The fall evidently immobilized 10-4TO, which was then set upon—I assume by feral droids. It was stripped of its appendages and CPU.”

Jax went cold. “But that means the data are—”

“No longer in 10-4TO’s possession, I’m afraid.”

Silence for a moment. Then Den asked, “And the good news?”

“That is the good news. The bad news is that my sensors indicate that the radiation level is higher. You organics need to leave, and I’m not staying here by myself.”

“It gets better,” Jax said. “Vader’s coming. He may already be here.”

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then the avian said, “Now will someone please get these fripping cuffs off me?”

Jax unclipped the lightsaber’s hilt again. They’d have to trust the bird man—they’d need all their speed and abilities, and the threads of Force emanating from him, while hard and ruthless, had no strands of possible betrayal interwoven.

He felt a wave of weariness wash over him. Even if they did escape, there was no guarantee that Vader would give up. For all Jax knew, the Sith Lord would pursue him across the galaxy. He’d already come halfway around the planet. Though Jax had no idea why Vader wanted him, it seemed pretty clear that he would not give up until he had either Jax or proof of his death.

Jax freed the avian—his name, he said, was Kaird—and powered up his weapon again. He looked at the glowing blade, nodded to himself, then turned to I-Five. “We need something big to cover our escape,” he said. “And I think I know where to get one.” Quickly he explained his plan to the droid.

I-Five projected surprise. “Are you willing to give up your weapon to do this?”

“I’m not happy about it, but I don’t see another choice,” Jax replied. “The only life-form readings that the freighter’s scanners picked up in a five-hundred-kilometer radius were Xizor’s and Kaird’s. I don’t mind sending a bunch of feral droids to the scrap heap, and maybe Vader as well. Are your sensors up to it?”

“Not a problem—the radiation signature is quite detectable.”

Jax nodded, hesitated, then handed his lightsaber to I-Five. The droid took it and began to walk slowly around in the rubble-strewn chamber. He appeared to be looking for something.

Den and the avian joined Jax and Laranth. They watched the droid with some perplexity. “What are you doing, Five?” Den asked. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Agreed,” the droid replied. “But as Jax has pointed out, simply leaving won’t throw Vader off our trail. We need a distraction—a major distraction. Unless Vader is convinced Jax is dead, he’ll never stop hunting him.

“Ah. Here it is.” I-Five was standing near the remains of one of the destroyed feral droids. He locked the lightsaber’s trigger button and held it out at arm’s length, between two fingers, with the energy blade pointing straight down. Then he dropped it.

It struck the floor, point-first. The frictionless blade, hot enough to melt through a twenty-centimeter blast door, barely slowed down when it hit the duracrete. The sound it made dropped into a slightly lower register, but that was all. In a few seconds it had disappeared down the shaft it was melting.

I-Five turned and walked quickly back to the others. “Let’s go,” he said.

Den Dhur stared at him. “Have you flipped your chip? What was that all about?”

“It’s about creating a major distraction, like he said,” Jax replied. “Don’t blame I-Five; it was my idea.”

“It was a good one. I’ll be happy to help