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Mirax glanced at Jaina. “You're Slicer?”

“What else would the Sword of the Jedi do but slice?” Jaina gestured at the bounty hunters' vehicle, which had gotten turned around and was headed their way. “Don't give them a clear line of fire at you. There's no telling what the Quarren's weapon can do.”

“Right.” Whether that was a confirmation or an indication of direction, Jaina didn't know, but Mirax abruptly vectored rightward, down a narrow accessway normally used by waste haulers and maintenance workers. It was a surface-level tunnel, opening to the sky each time it came to a thoroughfare. The violence of the maneuver threw Jaina across Seff's body and against the hatch on the left side. Seff remained unconscious.

Five security speeders and the bounty hunters' vehicle followed, the bounty hunters third in line.

“Running out of time.” There was a shrill edge to Tahiri's words. “As soon as they get more pursuit on Jaina, this becomes a chase we can't win.”

“Hoth is still out. And now we have to yank this vehicle's recorder. Since you're using real names.”

“Right, sorry. If I can get you to the cargo hauler, can you disable it?”

Jag straightened up from looking at Winter. He stared over Tahiri's shoulder. They were now halfway along the accessway and accelerating. Their speeder was last in line, and it did not appear that any of the security troopers in the pursuit had realized that the last security vehicle was occupied by hostiles. “I lost my blaster. I have some knockout grenades—no, wait. Get me within reach of the underside.” That was an insane thing to expect of an ordinary pilot, but Jedi tended to be no more ordinary than Jag himself.

Tahiri nodded and accelerated. She passed beneath the fourth security speeder so close to the surface that Jag could feel the repulsors pushing off from permacrete below; he could see debris at road level being kicked in all directions by their thrust wash. The next speeder forward was too low for such a maneuver, so Tahiri climbed, her vehicle's aft grazing the nose of the speeder she'd just passed. She went as high as the tunnel ceiling would allow, climbing over the speeder in front of her.

The unexpected repulsor wash kicked that speeder downward and to the left. Jag heard it scrape along the tunnel wall, and then it was behind them, rolling at surface level, sending out showers of sparks. He winced, hoping that the security troopers inside, innocent of wrongdoing in this mess, would be all right.

The bounty hunters' vehicle was directly ahead now, and the Quarren in the bed only had eyes for Mirax's speeder. Tahiri dipped again, moving up directly beneath the hauler, rising as close to it as she could against its repulsor thrust.

Jag slapped down his helmet's face shield, lowered the transpari-steel in his viewport, and reached up for the speeder's underside. Repulsor thrust hammered at his arm, forcing it down. He could overcome that pressure, but still couldn't reach the vehicle's underside; it was centimeters out of his reach.

Cursing, he opened his hatch. Gripping the speeder's roof with one crushgaunt, he half stood, his knees straining as the repulsor thrust from above shoved him down.

There was a sudden flash of light as they and the other vehicles of the caravan crossed a thoroughfare, exposing them momentarily to sky and lights from traffic. Then they were in the next tunnel.

Jag got his left crushgaunt on machinery in the hauler's underbelly. He exerted himself, and the strength-augmenting servos in the gauntlet squeezed the repulsor nozzles out of recognizable shape. Next he grabbed a maneuvering thruster vent, destroying it similarly, and then there was the auxiliary energy cell—

That actually exploded as he squeezed it, a minor detonation that pelted him with little shards of metal. He felt stings in his neck and upper arms. Then smoke billowed from the area he'd damaged.

The cargo hauler slowed, dropping behind Tahiri's speeder. Jag saw the Kuh woman staring at her control console and pounding on the yoke; then she looked up and caught sight of him.