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“Language. What is it?”

“It has an oversized driver's cab and that Skakoan is in it.”

Luke frowned. Suddenly everyone knew that Valin was coming here, including press and bounty hunters. That meant open comm channels were being monitored, and people with no business being here were up to date. Daala's people had to be doing this.

Then he saw it, almost at ground level, an X-wing painted in classic First Galactic Civil War grays. Its running lights were off; it was illuminated only by the glows from parking area pole lights—it flew beneath the altitude of the lights themselves.

“Hold on.” Luke pushed his control yoke forward, sending the speeder into a precipitous dive.

Ben's lips were drawn back in a grimace—perhaps because no teenager wants anyone else to endanger his vehicle recklessly, that being the teenager's own prerogative—but said, “Falcon's incoming.”

“Good.” Luke put the speeder on an intercept course, or a collision course if anything went wrong, and switched the autopilot on. He unlatched his seat restraints and slid toward Ben. “Take the controls.”

He was gratified to see his son's eyes open wide, but Ben did as he was told; the boy unbuckled, slid under his father, grabbed the controls, disengaged the autopilot.

Luke stood up in the seat, drawing on the Force to keep him pinned in place despite the rush of wind threatening to tear him free.

He counted on Ben to know what to do, and his son did not let him down. Ben leveled off at the same altitude as the X-wing, completing his maneuver just meters behind the starfighter, and drew alongside that vehicle's port side.

Luke sprang across the gap separating his seat from the cockpit. The wind threatened to whip him away, but a boost of Force energy carried him to the fuselage just as Valin Horn was realizing he had a pace vehicle. Luke landed astride the nose, facing astern, staring straight down into Valin's startled features.

Valin yanked up on the X-wing's armrests. The canopy was suddenly open, snapping backward, and gone, and Valin hurtled into the sky, his pilot's chair propelled by a crude one-use rocket.

“Stang! He punched out.” Han pounded his steering yoke.

Leia looked as aggravated as Han felt. “Can the cargo tractor beam—”

“Not strong enough. Can't compensate for a fast-moving target.”

“We have to go after Valin, then.”

Han shook his head. “The ejection won't have left enough controls for Luke to land the X-wing. He may be able to lift it or push it down with the Force … but land it with no controls? No. We have to help him.” He heeled over, diving toward the X-wing.

“He punched out.” Jaina reluctantly turned her attention from Luke, disappearing toward the spaceport on the uncontrolled X-wing, and returned it to Valin, still ascending in his ejection seat. She banked and headed toward the rogue Jedi.

In the passenger seat, Master Kyle Katarn, about Luke's age, dark-haired and dark-bearded, stretched as if coming out of a nap. “You plan to maneuver underneath and catch him?”

“That's right.”

Katarn pointed toward another speeder, a large, flatbed cargo hauler with figures standing in the cargo bed. This vehicle rose toward Valin's position from a much nearer position. “So do they.”

Valin's seat reached its maximum altitude and began dropping. Immediately the short-term repulsor within the seat activated, slowing his descent.

He felt as though he'd taken a tremendous blow to the top of his head, doing no damage to it but compressing the spine beneath. Ejections were always like that—bad, but better than the alternative.

And he'd always relish the look on Not-Luke's face when he'd ejected. It had been priceless.

A cargo hauler maneuvered itself toward his descent path. Grumbling, he got his lightsaber into one hand, grabbing his seat restraint buckle with the other.

As the hauler came underneath, instead of waiting for the seat to touch down, Valin unbuckled the restraints and flipped forward, landing on his feet moments before the seat landed.

In the