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Bursting out through the doorway, he kicked a Rodian off a speeder bike, settled himself in the saddle, and dropped it into first gear. Cranking the throttle, he shot off and headed for the nearest canyonlike intersection that would allow him to lose himself in the city. He instantly regretted not having shot up the other speeder bikes in front of the Headquarters, but a glance back at his pursuit suggested returning to do that now would be suicide.

If I’m going to die, I’d prefer it on my terms, in my time. Doing what he’d done back in the cantina had been stupid, but that was the only option he had when being faced with death. There had been no doubt in his mind—or the minds of anyone else in that cantina—that Thyne was going to kill him. That knowledge was the reason Corran knew the man on his right would hesitate before shooting—robbing Thyne of his kill would be as fatal as being Corran Horn in that situation.

Corran clutched and shifted with his feet, then gave the bike more throttle with his right hand. Using his thumb he hit the suicide-cruise button, keeping the throttle constant, then shoved the blaster down onto a pair of snap-clips that held it perfectly at the muzzle and trigger guard. With his left hand he rotated the vector-shift back, canting the forward directional vanes up, and hung on as the speeder bike climbed toward a hovering skyhook.

I don’t remember the Incom Zoom II being this responsive, but it looks like the Rodian had this one all tricked out. Good thing for me, I guess. He hunkered down and rotated the speeder bike to put its bulk between him and the blaster bolts being shot by his pursuit. The Incom speeder bike didn’t have any weaponry built onto it. The small data display between the throttle and vector handles constantly had stuff scrolling across it, but it was all in Rodian, which meant Corran had no idea what was going on. As long as I go fast, does it really matter?

Rolling the bike and playing with the vector-shift, he straightened it out and sent it screaming along through one of the upper canyons. He aimed the speeder bike well away from the mountainous Imperial Palace and cut around a skyhook tether. Shifting his weight and giving the vector-shift nudges now and again, he kept the speeder bike juking and bouncing as the wind tugged at his hair and blaster bolts streaked scarlet past him. Some of them were heavier than those a handheld blaster could produce, letting him know that some of the machines were military surplus and in good working order.

He glanced back, but in the darkness all he could see was blaster bolts coming at him. The riders coming up behind were getting better with their shots and Corran realized that flying up high and in the open was playing to their strength. I need a tight course with few shots available. That means down!

Hanging on tightly he inverted and cranked the vector-shift back. The speeder bike dove through the night, flashing past level after level of apartments, malls, offices, and grand promenades. Chopping the throttle back, Corran threw his weight to the left and hooked the bike around and back up through a narrow space between two towers. Leaning back to the right, he came around the cylindrical tower and shot off down an alley.

A scattering of blaster bolts scored the walls around him. Corran broke left, then cut the throttle back and shifted into neutral. A tug on the vector-shift brought his bike around in a flat spin that he killed by goosing the thrust to kill his momentum. Hanging there in the air, he filled his hand with the blaster and braced his hand on the speeder bike’s chassis.

Two speeder bikes cut into the alley, racing full bore after him. Corran’s first two shots hit the rightmost bike on the nose. The bike’s control panel exploded in a silver shower of sparks. The blast lifted the driver and pitched him head over heels off the speeder bike’s rear end. The bike itself immediately began a smoking dive toward the planet below and the driver slowly tumbled down in its wake.

He shifted his aim to the