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It wasn’t. The second PCBU slowed before entering the pressor field, then made a right-angle turn and disappeared into the dim maze of buildings, storage facilities, processing stations, and other structures.

“Blast! Where did it go?”

“I detect no power output in the local area,” I-Five said.

“Good.” Jax reactivated the weaver. “Let’s get out of here.” He zoomed the weaver away from the cloudcutter and turned down a side street, only to find it blocked by another gigantic support strut. “Dead end,” Jax said. He turned the weaver around—

And the second PCBU was waiting for them.

Den hunched over the weaver’s steering column, twisting the right handlebar grip, which was the accelerator, as hard as he could. The blasted thing couldn’t outrun a human kid’s tri-wheeler, much less a PCBU. This had definitely not been one of I-Five’s better ideas, he told himself.

If he’d been trying to escape alone, he would have been a blackened side dish long before now. Fortunately he had a Jedi for his copilot. Laranth Tarak stood behind him in the weaver, her back to his, firing calmly while Den, his heart, stomach, and several other organs all fighting for room in his throat, kept them zooming up and down streets at random, not caring that they were, by now, utterly lost, not caring that they were separated from Jax Pavan and I-Five, concentrating on only one thing—escaping the droid police units.

He swerved the weaver, dodging a small bomb crater, than swerved again to avoid a cargo transport crossing at an intersection. All the while he was hearing particle beams, lasers, slugthrowers, and who knew what else going off behind him. But nothing could get past the Twi’lek Jedi. Laranth’s skill with her twin blasters was unbelievable; even though Den knew the Force was aiding her, what she was doing seemed utterly impossible. She was actually shooting the slugs and particle beams in the air, deflecting them in midshot. He’d seen her doing it, both by risking a glance or two over his shoulder and in the reflection of windows as they’d raced past storefronts.

At first he couldn’t believe it. Now, after a few minutes, he was starting to feel like they might have a chance. Incredible as it was, she wasn’t letting a slug, beam, or blast come anywhere near them. Den realized that, if she was that phenomenally good, she would eventually get a couple of good clear shots at the PCBUs themselves, and then they’d be out of trouble.

“We’re in trouble,” she shouted over her shoulder. “I’m running out of blaster gas in both chambers. Better think of something fast.”

When will I learn that hoping is the worst thing to do in a life-or-death situation? “Hang on!” he shouted and leaned to the right, forcing the weaver into a sharp turn.

“Where are we going?”

“Just keep shooting!” he yelled.

“I’ve got enough juice for another thirty seconds!”

Perfect, he thought. Because in another ten we’ll either be free or dead.

He knew that, because she was facing the other way, Laranth couldn’t see what he was planning until he’d already done it. Which was good, because trying to ride a weaver—or just about anything, for that matter—at high speed through the first floor of a half-demolished building was about as suicidal as trying to fly a starship through an asteroid field. Den heard her gasp in disbelief as they entered the skeletal framework. He had just time enough to think, A Jedi who can block blaster bolts with more blaster bolts is floored by this. We’re fripped, and then he was way too busy dodging I-beams, columns, lift tubes, and whatever else one might find in a building’s exposed guts—he had no time to take note, because it was all happening much too fast.

From behind him he heard a crash and an explosion, and orange light flickered for a moment.

“Got one!” Laranth shouted. “It hit a column!”

Only one? he wondered. But there was no time to worry about the other one. Up, down, left, right, fast, faster … that was all he had time for. Then suddenly he shot through an aperture