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“No, we won’t. Buy we’ll certainly see who blinks first.” He reflected for an instant. “Give me the controls.”

“I thought you said gambling was a foolish occupation,” Shada remarked, as the frigate grew larger on their screens.

“Indeed I did,” Karrde replied. “But I’m not gambling. On my mark, release proton torpedoes. Don’t fire them—just release them.”

“As you wish, sir,” the gunner replied, sounding puzzled.

“They’re trying for tractor lock,” Shada said.

“Yes. Let them have it.”

“What?”

“Drop the shields.”

This time the dampeners couldn’t absorb all of the shock; the deck felt as if it was buckling beneath their feet as the tractor beam caught them, killing their forward motion.

“Torpedoes. Now,” Karrde said.

“Torpedoes released.” Shada looked up. “The tractor beam has them.”

“Good. Arm them and put our shields back up.”

“Sir, they’ve commenced fire on the torpedoes.”

“Have they released the tractor beam?”

“No, sir.”

“Detonate the torpedoes, then.”

He reengaged the drive as the screen went white.

CHAPTER NINE

Treetops snapped as Anakin wrestled with gravity. Vehn’s complaints had deteriorated to a steady moan. Valin, strapped in the copilot’s seat, looked very ill. Sannah was still firing the turbolaser; from her, Anakin could sense both frustration and anger. Tahiri had been her friend, too.

Was still her friend. Tahiri was alive. Anakin could feel that as certainly as he could feel his own skin.

The transport cut a smoking swath across the tree line for a kilometer before Anakin saw what passed for a clearing. He dropped in, straining the inertial dampeners well beyond their parameters, fetching up against a wall of vines and secondary growth—dense, but without much mass. If he hit a big tree …

He tried not to think about it. Instead he dumped a torpedo and reversed direction, traveling into the more open forest beyond on repulsors, drifting back toward the treetops, hiding in the canopy.

The torpedo went, taking a hundred square meters of the forest with it in a carbon-rich plume.

“Come on, you vultures,” Anakin muttered.

“Got them,” Sannah called softly.

“No,” Anakin replied. “Wait.”

He could make it out through the smoke, a Sentinel-class shuttle.

“They think we’ve crashed,” Valin said.

“Yes,” Anakin replied, punching the engines back on. The modified shuttle tried to swing around as he rose out of the trees, but it was too late. He fired his last proton torpedo, and the Peace Brigade ship became a ball of fire, sinking into the already burning jungle.

“Anakin!” Sannah shrieked.

Instinctively, Anakin threw the ship skyward, but not before multiple impacts ripped through the failing transport.

“There you are,” he muttered. “After you, I’m done.”

Of the three ships that had chased him halfway around the moon, only this one—an E-wing—remained. Unfortunately, while Anakin’s commandeered transport was limping so badly it would soon go down on its own, the speedy little fighter was undamaged.

“You only have to hit it once, Sannah,” Anakin said. “Maybe twice.”

“I can’t get a bead,” she shouted back.

The little ship made a pass, and the air suddenly smelled sharply of ozone and vaporized metal as the transport tremored.

“Let me have a shot!” Vehn demanded.

“What?”

“Look, I don’t wanna die. This is my ship, those are my guns. I know ’em better than that kid back there. She’s never even handled a gun before, that much is clear—yii!” Vehn blanched as Anakin put the ungainly craft in a barrel roll.

“You think I trust you?”

“Use your poodoo-stinking Jedi powers. Can’t you tell I’m serious?”

To Anakin’s surprise, he really didn’t sense deception from the fellow.

“You’d shoot down your own friends?”

“They’re not my friends.”

Again, no deception.

Anakin made his decision. “Valin, uncuff him. Take him to the gun. Vehn, I promise you, if this is a trick, no matter what else happens, you’ll be sorry.”

“Sorrier than I am now? I doubt it.”

Anakin dropped low again, trying to buy a few more seconds. He had only one engine left