• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

A pulse of laserfire, four brilliant red streams converging so closely that they seemed to be one, crossed from above and behind the speeder to hit the YVH droid dead center in the chest. The droid was catapulted off its feet and smashed through the rear of the hauler's control cab, disappearing completely.

Smoke poured out of the cab, and the hauler began to nose forward into a shallow dive.

Jaina craned her neck back to see the Falcon, pacing the speeder at a higher altitude. She waved at her mother, clearly visible in the underside turret. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Most mothers just pack a lunch.” Kyle put on a burst of speed, accelerating toward the news speeder. “You want to try another jump?”

“I guess.” Jaina checked her lightsaber, then clipped it to her belt.

Another speeder, black with arrow-tipped white stripes on the sides, open-topped, raced past Kyle's. It was no civilian vehicle; the roar from its engines was similar to that of a Podracer. It was a two-seater, and the pilot was the bounty hunter who dressed as a Jedi. Beside her was a man Jaina had barely glimpsed at Luke's arrest, a Rodian holding an unusually long blaster rifle, scoped, in his hands. As they roared past, the woman gave Kyle and Jaina a wave.

The striped racer dipped low and passed the news speeder moments later. Jaina saw the passenger turn, raise his weapon, and fire at the news vehicle.

It was not a destructive shot—it was surgical. Smoke began issuing from the news speeder. It wobbled, probably from a fright reflex on the part of the pilot. Moments later, viewports all over the vehicle opened, allowing smoke to pour out everywhere.

* * *

Luke took a moment to assess the vista before him. The news speeder was clearly doomed, so Valin would be abandoning it as soon as possible. “Take me over it, just to one side.”

Ben nodded and put on more speed. Crowding the edge of the traffic lane, he passed below the Falcon, then above Master Katarn and Jaina. Drawing near the news speeder, he maintained his higher altitude but sideslipped to port, putting Luke directly above the speeder's roof.

Once again Luke looked down into the face of Valin Horn. He flipped over the side and landed at the rear of the speeder's roof, stabilizing himself through the Force.

Valin flipped up to the roof. “Wish you'd taken longer with that X-wing.”

Luke gestured at the lightsaber Valin carried—not Valin's own, it was a very simple cylinder of shining steel. “Did that belong to your nurse?”

“Yes.” Valin switched it on. “It's not very stylish, but—”

“That's enough.” Luke advanced, activating his own lightsaber. Valin raised his in a preliminary block. Luke struck, twitching his blade out of the most obvious line of attack, and the blade sheared the hilt of Valin's weapon in two, not harming him.

Valin's blade switched off as the weapon's lower half dropped into the darkened urban chasm below. Valin took a step back, the last step he could afford before dropping off the front of the speeder, but Luke's advance was near instantaneous. The Grand Master slammed the butt of his own weapon into Valin's temple.

Valin Horn dropped like a slaughterhouse bantha. Luke caught his topcoat lapel, keeping him from following the lightsaber wreckage into the depths.

THE PILOT OF THE NEWS SPEEDER NEEDED NO URGING FROM LUKE. HE picked the nearest plausible landing spot, a portion of a twentieth-story-altitude pedestrian walkway broad enough for two starfighters to land abreast, and set down. Immediately, all the pursuit vehicles set down on one side or the other of it—all but the Falcon, which rose, looking for a broader landing area.

Jaina, Kyle, and Ben joined Luke. At his instant order, they stood at the four corners of the news speeder, lightsabers unlit but in hand, and waved the oncoming security troopers, press, and onlookers back. The security troopers, no ranking officer present, hesitated in the face of unthreatening but armed Jedi resistance and simply formed up lines, keeping the press and