“TIE!” Hera yelled.
The starfighter rocketed over them, a white bulb sandwiched between black hexagonal wings. Kanan looked back to see the twin lights of its ion engines receding in the distance—only to feel the world move again as a second fighter, its level flight path perpendicular to the highway, began strafing them from above.
Hera banked the Smoothride violently, sending her riders tumbling. There was no protection from the TIE’s attack—except for the highway itself. The Smoothride’s engines objecting, Hera tilted the hoverbus ninety degrees, riding not on the road surface but rather the left retaining wall of the elevated highway. The TIE, which had been aiming low for its pass, found its cannon fire pummeling duracrete rather than its intended target.
Hera twisted the Smoothride back to level again. The TIE shrieked overhead and began to loop—and now the first attacker was back, rocketing up the highway toward them. This time, Hera slammed on the brakes, sending the hoverbus into a spin—and began racing back in the other direction. The maneuver closed the distance with the TIE that had been tailing them such that its shots went harmlessly overhead.
Kanan scrambled to his feet. Hera was the best driver he had ever seen, coaxing things he’d never imagined possible out of the Smoothride. But this couldn’t go on—especially not as they were now racing back toward the Recon transports, piled up and blazing. Something had to be done.
Kanan ran forward to the front of the vehicle. Skidding to a stop, he dived to the floor right at Hera’s legs.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Hera asked, bewildered.
Kanan reached past her feet for something beneath the driver’s seat. “This thing used to fly, remember?” He yanked loose a brown pack with straps on it—Okadiah’s ancient parachute.
“You’re jumping out on us?”
“Hardly!” Getting to his feet, Kanan looked to the ceiling, amidships. “Cut the throttle. When I give the signal, let loose!” He looked back. “Skelly! I’m going to need your help!”
“Great!” Skelly looked at him tiredly. “I’m going to need medication.” But he got to his feet.
In the ceiling at the exact center of the vehicle was the emergency exit to the roof: not a bad thing on a planet prone to quakes and mudslides. When Skelly reached him, Kanan was balanced on one of the seat backrests, trying to force open the rusty hatch. “I need you to get up here and hold me!”
The second TIE fighter was making a run along the highway’s length when Kanan emerged on the roof. There was no good chance of simply throwing a bomb at it, he’d realized. The wind took him fully as he stood. Skelly had wedged himself in the opening behind Kanan and was holding on to the back of his belt. Kanan was facing down a TIE, which was racing toward him with its lasers ready to fire while he had no weapon at all.
But he had a plan.
“Hera, now!”
Behind, Skelly yelled the call down to Hera. She hit the accelerator—just as Kanan activated the parachute. Attached to nothing, the drogue caught the wind fully and ballooned backward into the air—opening wide into the TIE fighter’s path. The fighter veered right, only to find ropes and canvas snagging across its starboard solar panel. Tangled, tumbling, and blinded, the distracted starfighter pilot missed seeing the microwave tower in his path.
“Whoa!” Kanan said, nearly losing his footing as the ship exploded spectacularly. One down. But there was the other one to go, he saw as he turned to look forward. And between the hoverbus and the TIE fighter Kanan saw the smoking pileup that had been the Recon transports. His earlier dirty work lay before them, now, a barrier—and if Hera tried to do another 180-degree turn, he feared he’d go flying. Worse still, there were stormtroopers on the deck of the highway, having emerged from the wreckage. Small-arms fire was flashing—and they were racing straight toward it!
“Pull me back!”
Skelly wasn’t in any shape to move Kanan anywhere. But he did lose his hold on the roof opening, falling down into the hoverbus, causing Kanan to tumble backward toward the hole. Catching himself, he struggled to turn himself around and lower his legs inside the hatch.
He heard something from below. “Hera says to hang on!”
Kanan, halfway in the hatch with both hands on the roof, blinked. “Hera, what are you—”
Before he could finish the sentence, the hoverbus barreled through the stormtroopers on the elevated pavement before them, sending several tumbling over the side. Sure that the hoverbus would collide with the smoking wreckage, Kanan put his arm before his face—
—and felt a tremendous surge beneath him as the hoverbus struck the impediment. Struck it, and overtopped it, its repulsorlift jets using the debris as a makeshift ramp. The Smoothride launched into the air—and came fully to life, its ancient engines remembering what they once had been able to do.
Hera had made the vehicle fly! To the stunned surprise of Kanan—and certainly to the shock of the surviving TIE pilot, who veered to avoid a collision, only to crash catastrophically into a smokestack.
The Smoothride stayed aloft, leaving the elevated highway and buffeting over rooftops. Kanan couldn’t believe his eyes. Slipping inside the roof opening, he landed roughly and rushed forward to Hera. “This thing hasn’t flown in years!”
“You’ve got to talk to it right,” she said, smiling.
“I thought I was a good pilot. But you—you’re amazing.”
“Thank you. But we should probably go somewhere.”
Kanan blinked. “Oh, yeah.” He pointed. “Back south. The Pits, out near the cantina.”
She glanced at him with concern. “We can’t just drive up anywhere. They’ve got satellites. They’ll find this thing. We’ll have to find a place to ditch it.”
“That,” Kanan reassured her, “won’t be a problem.”
Words could change things. Kanan had been taught that by the Jedi, and it was certainly true when it came to a short document generated by Minerax Consulting, which had changed the face of Gorse four years before the fall of the Republic.
Thorilide mining in the system, before then, had taken place entirely on the surface of Gorse in the wide, drenched plains south of the megalopolis. Then came Minerax’s survey, projecting that no more thorilide deposits of any scale remained on either side of the planet. By the time the mines started seeing proof of it, the smart credits had already moved, with producers establishing operations on Cynda. In the space of a year, the strip mines that came right up to the edge of town went from work zones under the big lights to dumping grounds in the dark. The last mine on Gorse closed the day the Clone Wars ended.
So many of the places existed—Okadiah called them “Gorse’s clogged pores”—that Kanan couldn’t imagine a better place to hide the hoverbus. The endless junkyard was home to many abandoned craft, large and small, including several Smoothrides; it was where Okadiah had found the thing to begin with. Kanan had realized it was the only place they could go, after this long and difficult day, to have any chance of following one of Obi-Wan’s directives.
“Avoid detection,” Kanan mumbled.
Sliding out from under the left side of the dashboard, Hera looked up at him. “What?”
He leaned against the driver’s seat. “Nothing.” He shrugged. “I was just thinking—so much for keeping a low profile.”
“Well, I may have killed your bus,” Hera said, dousing her light. “Forget flying—I don’t think it’ll run again.”
Kanan watched her close the equipment panel. The hoverbus had so many dents and blaster scores, he was amazed the thing hadn’t spontaneously combusted.
Hera walked past the driver’s seat, her arms sagging a little. She looked tired. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a day like this.”
“Stick around Gorse,” Kanan said, following her down the aisle. “Every day’s a trip to the zoo.”
Hera confronted Skelly, who was two rows back, nursing his wounds. Her tone was chilly. “What could you possibly have been thinking?”
Skelly stared off in a medicinal haze. “My escape route was all planned. Your hoverbus was in the way.”
“In the way of what?” Kanan asked. “Careening into the wall, instead?”
“That’s not it,” Hera said. “I mean taking us down a main avenue—and then throwing bombs willy-nilly. You were almost a bigger menace than the Empire.”
Skelly looked hurt. “I’m trying to save people here. I tried to minimize casualties.”
“You sound like you’re in a war,” Kanan said.
“I am,” Skelly said. “It’s never ended.” He waved his prosthetic hand around.
Hera shook her head, and then she turned away. “Vidian killed Gord. I saw it.”
Kanan nodded. “I guess he couldn’t live without Lal.”
“He wanted justice,” Hera said in a soft voice, staring at the wall. “But expecting the Empire to prosecute one of its own is—”
“Dumb?” Skelly said, looking abruptly at her.
Hera shook her head. “I was going to say, something we have a right to expect. Which is why people are having second thoughts about the Empire. It’s not here to help you. It only exists to help itself.”
“Boy, that’s right,” Skelly said, rubbing his forehead. “I sure got that Vidian wrong.”
Kanan thought that was a whole different subject—and that the time for talking was past. The thing now was to get moving, before the Empire put search vessels into the air. “Come on,” he said to her. “We’re not far from The Asteroid Belt. We can decide what to do from there.”
She didn’t respond. Reaching for her arm, he waved to Skelly. “You wanted the hoverbus, Skelly? Keep it. We’re gone.”
“Wait,” Hera said. “You’re just going to leave him?”
“Wrong. We’re just going to leave him, if you’re smart. I don’t think anyone saw you and me clearly at the spaceport, but everybody saw him. And that woman and her surveillance firm—their cams are all over the city. How long do you really want to hang around here?”
Hera frowned. “But he’s injured.”
“Which he did to himself.” Kanan looked her in the eye. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish, but whatever it is, this guy isn’t going to help you.”
She looked at him for several seconds. For a moment, Kanan thought she was going to make a decision.
And then he heard the thumping.
It was amidships, coming from the closet-sized restroom compartment. The door frame had bent slightly as a result of the day’s damage to the hoverbus, and a sliver of an opening had appeared. As he approached, the pounding grew louder.
“I know we’re in a dump,” Skelly said, “but that’s the biggest rodent I’ve ever heard.”
Puzzled, Kanan walked to the rear and located a pry bar. Hera and Skelly gathered near the door as he returned. “This door always jams,” Kanan said. “And locks itself, and worse. Okadiah spent his summer vacation in there once.” He shoved the bar edge into the aperture and pushed. Something snapped.
The door popped open—and a very tired Sullustan fell out.
“Zaluna?”
Zaluna Myder rolled on the floor, gasping and clutching her bag. “Air! Air!” She looked frazzled. She was wearing the same dark clothing from the night before, Kanan saw.
Skelly looked at her in wonder. “Were you in there all this time?”
“Through the bashing and the blasting,” she said, her throat dry. “The silly door’s too thick—you couldn’t hear me!” Zaluna looked up at Hera and Kanan with relieved recognition. Then her eyes fixed on Skelly. “You!”
Skelly looked confused as the woman recoiled, sliding backward on the aisle floor. “What’s the deal? I don’t know you. How do you know me?”
“You’re the bomber,” Zaluna said, big eyes growing improbably wider. “I ran the surveillance cam that got you arrested.”
Skelly blinked. “You what?” Realizing what she’d said, he rocked forward on his seat toward her. “You what?”
Zaluna fished in her bag and pulled out her blaster. “Keep him away from me.”
Kanan slapped his hands on Skelly’s shoulder and pushed him back. “He’s not going to hurt you. He has Beatings One through Seven coming from me, first.”
“Three through seven,” Skelly said. “Vidian got me first. And you gave me Beating Number One back on the moon yesterday.” He glared at Zaluna. “Did you see that, too?”
“Yes,” Zaluna said, looking down. “I don’t think Kanan should have hit you.”
“Thanks,” Kanan said. He shrugged to Hera. “See what I get for helping?”
Zaluna put her blaster away. Hera stepped over to help her up into a seat. She looked back into the cramped compartment. “You’ve been in there how long?”
“Since last night, when we saw Skelly come into the cantina,” Zaluna said, struggling to get to her feet. “The stormtroopers were outside. I was looking for someplace to hide, and the bus was there. But I got stuck. I couldn’t get a signal out—and the door’s so thick you couldn’t hear me.”
Kanan chuckled and shook his head. “All the bombs going off, all the people shooting at us—and you were right there!”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.” She looked to Hera. “We’ll have to discuss Hetto’s data cube later. I’ve got to get home. I’ve missed work!”
Hera looked at Kanan with concern. “Zaluna, I don’t know that you should go home, or back to work.” Hera shook her head gently. “The Empire’s not just looking for Skelly anymore. They’re after this vehicle, and probably us, too—we don’t know. And until we know what they think about you, it’s not safe for you to go back.”
Zaluna looked bereft. “I really stepped in something, didn’t I?”
“It’s not mud,” Kanan said.
The Sullustan closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. After a moment, she opened them again—seeming almost at peace. “All right. I’ve been thirty-some years on one side of the cams. It won’t hurt me to know what it’s like on the other side.” Seconds later, she was climbing atop her seat, stretching for the domed light fixture in the ceiling. It was just within her reach. “When people run, they never run smart,” Zaluna said, running her fingers inside the dome. “The secret is to make sure the watchers don’t know who’s running.”
Hera was alarmed. “What is it? There isn’t a surveillance cam on board here, is there?”
“This was once a city transport. Those were set up for commercial surveillance thirty years ago.” Finding nothing, Zaluna stepped down and moved to the next seat. Climbing, she repeated the process with the next light fixture.
Kanan gawked. “Why would they bug a hoverbus?”
“In those days, to see what beverages you preferred to drink on a commute,” Zaluna said, fishing around with her fingers. “These days, it’s for the same reason the Empire would watch a cantina, or an elevator. To catch threats before they become threats.”
Skelly crossed his arms. “Everyone who called me paranoid, the line for apologies begins to the left.”
Zaluna’s jowls flared upward in a Sullustan smile, and she removed a small widget from inside the fixture. “Ah. Just like I thought. One of our obsolete recorders. No live feed—it does a batch upload to the satellite once a week.” She pitched it to Hera as Kanan helped her down.
Hera rolled the impossibly small recording device over in the palm of her hand. “It won’t send anything now, will it?”
“No, it’s disconnected from the transmitter. But I admit I’d be interested to see what’s on it. I’ve been in the dark all day. I’d like to know what all the noise was about.”
“You were better off where you were,” Kanan said. “I’d like to be able to forget it!”
Hera stood in the doorway and looked at him. “Can you hide all of us at the bar until we figure out what the situation is? It’s safer if we don’t split up.”
There was no use grumbling, Kanan realized. If there was one thing he’d
learned, it was that he wasn’t going to change Hera’s mind once she’d decided on something. “All right,” he said. “But at the first sign of a stormtrooper, Skelly, I never met you!”
“Bastinade is here,” Sloane said, sipping from a mug and gesturing to the Lambda descending from the sky.
“Can your people keep this one from being blown up?” Vidian asked. “You only have nine more shuttles.”
Sloane hid her expression behind her cup. The control tower’s caf was no good, but after the last few hours, any respite was welcome. They’d lost several transports, two TIE fighters—and, worst of all, their quarry. In a quarry: an agglomeration of pits filled with refuse and runoff like she’d never seen. The satellite trackers had lost the hoverbus after five seconds in the place. The stormtroopers could be combing the area for months.
Until now, Vidian had said nothing about the incident, choosing instead to review the matter he’d first discussed with her back when they’d commandeered the hoverbus. A very strange matter, indeed, and one with potential ramifications for everyone who lived on Gorse. If it panned out, it might well turn more than a few model citizens into stark raving Skellies.
It probably wouldn’t—but Sloane was anxious to get off the planet before something else happened. Any more time on Gorse, she thought as she headed for the shuttle, and I might not even get a substitute command again!
It was strange, being in The Asteroid Belt alone. No customers had arrived yet, and he didn’t expect any for some time. Moonglow was undoubtedly still crawling with Imperials, and with the hoverbus out of action, Okadiah would have to find another way to get his regulars to and from the cantina.
Kanan had thought a million times about ditching the others. But he didn’t want to abandon Hera, and she was convinced Skelly’s capture would have led the Empire directly to them. Who knew, maybe she was right. And she wouldn’t leave without Zaluna, not when the woman still had the data cube Hera wanted.
A New Dawn: Star Wars Page 19
