Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [75]
The comm board lit up. “Dathomir Spaceport to Naboo Duckling, please state your intention.”
“Tell him we’re leaving.”
“Oh, dear. Um, Naboo Spaceport, this is the Dathomir Duckling. We are departing.”
“Return to your berth at once. You have not filed a flight plan or received clearance to depart.”
Allana glanced out her starboard viewport. Jade Shadow seemed so very close. All she had to do was twitch the wrong way and the two ships would crash together. “If they won’t protect us against big, ugly, mean droidnappers, we’re leaving.”
“Our captain wishes you to know—”
“I can hear your captain. What is she, ten years old?”
Allana felt a flash of pleasure. Ten! They thought she was ten. She pushed the yoke forward a touch. The Falcon, nose-down but completely off the ground, began floating toward the fences ahead. “Tell them I’m twelve.”
“Tell her it doesn’t matter how old she is. I will personally guarantee that she’ll be tried as an adult if she does not set that wreck down right where it is and surrender to our security team.”
“I don’t think I’ll pass that along. The young miss is a child in command of concussion missiles, and I think that her temper at this moment could best be described as uncertain. In addition, she has legitimate grievances against your spaceport administration, which I can enumerate.”
Allana pushed just a trifle harder, and the Falcon gained forward speed. The brilliantly lit fence came toward them at an alarming rate.
R2-D2 tweetled.
“Our astromech friend, who should know such things, calculates that we’re actually a couple of meters too—”
The Falcon drifted over the fence. Mostly over the fence. The landing skids caught the flexible wire-weave construction. Electricity sparked in all directions from the points of contact. The skids caught the fence material, but the Falcon was unslowed. With each passing moment, a twenty-meter stretch of fence on either side yanked free of its support posts and was dragged along behind the ship.
Finally there was a shudder through the Falcon. The nose dipped farther but did not come to ground again. The engines strained, and then the ship lurched and resumed her speed of a moment before, leaving in her wake a tremendous gap in the fence.
“Artoo reports obstruction cleared. I calculate the total cost to repair damages at—”
“I don’t care.”
“That doesn’t include punitive compensation, pain compensation, sentimental value compensation assuming that the fence serves as a treasured memento to someone—”
“I don’t care. I just want to know how long I’m going to be grounded.”
R2-D2 tweetled.
“The odds say fifty point four two Coruscant years.”
Allana flew for a while at treetop level. For her, this meant flying with the comforting noise of treetops scraping their way to oblivion along the Falcon’s lower hull. While that went on, she was sure that she was far enough above the ground. But R2-D2 pointed out via C-3PO that this tactic would allow pursuers to find her without effort once dawn broke, so she gained a little altitude.
At R2-D2’s urging, she changed direction several times, eventually heading east into marshy territory characterized by very tall trees, festooned with moss, with open spaces between their trunks. Then, in a harrowing five-minute exercise in trial and error, she brought the Falcon to the ground. The crunch of landing, reduced by the softness of the soil, was not too alarming, and only a few diagnostic screens came up with damage alerts.
“Artoo points out that, if we are to elude pursuit, it might be best if we deploy the camouflage covering, which will help conceal us from aerial observation. It does mean walking about on the ship’s top hull.”
Allana nodded, feeling old, wise, and as successful as one can be when facing a punishment destined to last more than half a century. “I can do that.”
BESIDE REDGILL