Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [106]
The cargo hauler sideswiped the speeder, knocking it off course. The hauler continued its sideslip so that it would pass over and to one side of Seff Hellin. The Quarren, Dhidal Nyz, leaned over the side of the hauler's bed with his oversized weapon and fired at Seff.
Seff sprang to one side with the speed of an experienced Jedi, but the net expanded too wide for him. It wrapped around him as it had Jaina days before. As its connecting cable went taut, the Quarren was nearly pulled over the rail, but he was braced for the impact. Seff was yanked off his feet and hauled into the air behind the vehicle.
Jaina grimaced. Seff would be experiencing the same shocks she had. She decided she intensely disliked that Quarren.
But the cargo hauler came on straight toward her.
The red speeder was getting turned around. Jaina brought out her lightsaber and thumbed on her comlink. “Credcoin, Slicer here. Your package is in the net. Follow the package.”
“Understood.” Even distorted, Mirax's voice sounded irritated.
As the cargo hauler passed, not quite overhead, Jaina ignited her lightsaber and hurled it, giving it direction and velocity through the Force. Its brilliant blade intersected the metal cable, shearing through it. Jaina positioned herself underneath her plummeting weapon but transferred her telekinetic effort to Seff, slowing his descent.
Slowing his descent some. She didn't know how incapacitated he was by the net-weapon's electrical charges. She let him hit the permacrete fairly hard, and could hear a loud grunt from him as he landed. The cargo hauler sped on, Dhidal Nyz staring down at the two of them in surprise; then the Quarren turned and began hammering on the back of the pilot's compartment.
Jaina caught her lightsaber, switched it off, and raced to stand beside Seff, stepping on and crushing the net's power pack as she did so.
Dazed, Seff looked up at her. “Oh, not you, too.”
“Sorry.” She hammered the side of his head with the lightsaber hilt, a crude, inelegant blow. But it had its intended effect. Seff slumped.
Mirax's speeder settled beside her. Using the Force to augment her strength, Jaina lifted Seff and tossed him into the backseat, then leapt in beside him.
Less than a hundred meters away, official vehicles around the crater were lifting off, turning in their direction. Jaina looked at Mirax. “Is this thing fast?”
“I only steal the best.”
“Go, go.”
They accelerated away from the scene.
The security officer, standing beside her speeder, watched four of her fellows' vehicles take off in pursuit of the red speeder. But she must have felt some presentiment of danger. She turned, grabbing for her blaster pistol, just as Tahiri's open-palm strike connected with her chin, bypassing her helmet entirely. The trooper slammed back into the side of her speeder, then slumped to the ground.
Behind Tahiri, Jag, with Winter over his shoulder, ducked so the speeder would help conceal him from the gaze of the other security officers, but they were all looking after the fleeing speeder. Over the sound of the alarm and sirens of arriving vehicles, none had heard Tahiri's attack. “I'll drive,” Jag said.
“I'll drive,” Tahiri snapped, sliding into the pilot's seat. “You're about as maneuverable as a nerf in a child seat with all that on. I doubt you can handle the controls.”
“I've flown a starfighter in this.” Jag opened the back hatch and carefully slid Winter in, then followed. “Go—”
She had the speeder off the ground before he finished his word, and turned on the lights and siren as she joined the chase. Jag managed to get his hatch shut.