by Greg Keyes
“Is there another?”
“No.”
“I didn’t have any aptitude for the Force, though,” Uldir added.
“So much is obvious,” the girl said.
“Yeah, I think you mentioned that,” Uldir said, veering sharply to port, where the police fliers were trying to flank him and doing a pretty good job. “Hold on a second,” he said. “We’ll have to fight a little, here.” He glanced over his shoulder. “My name is Uldir, by the way.”
“Klin-Fa Gi, at your service,” she said grimly. “You almost got me killed, Uldir. Don’t do it again.”
“I’ll try not to, Klin-Fa Gi. Stay down. We’re going to take some hits.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
For the second time that night, she leaped past him, landing with feline grace on the prow of the speeder. She stood there, a perfect target for the two fliers they were barreling toward. Then a snap-hiss carried over the wind, and a sliver of yellow energy appeared in her left hand, cutting quickly into a figure eight and sending a pair of blaster bolts humming off into the wastelands.
So that’s what was taped to her leg, Uldir concluded. Klin-Fa must have walked in front of one of the weapons sensors that Bonadan was lousy with.
“I guess I have shields now,” Uldir murmured, thumbing the blaster fire controls on his stick and jinking starboard. His shot was dead on, frying the opposing flier’s stabilizer. It went spinning off. Uldir hoped the pilot would get the flier under control before it hit the ground below.
That’s one, he thought, as Klin-Fa executed another crazy series of parries that left their flier unscathed by enemy fire.
As he’d noticed before, the pilots weren’t stupid. Contrary to the usual tactics of aerial combat, they were now trying to get underneath them, where the Jedi’s lightsaber wasn’t. He let the flier drop, hoping that Klin-Fa could keep her footing, afraid to do any really tight turns.
Shadowed wasteland came up at them, endless hectares of chemical-blistered ground cut into fractal patterns by violent erosion. Bonadan’s primary was now a thin red lens on the horizon, and a little north of that lightning serpentined inside an anvil-shaped cloud. The wind tasted of water, grit, and unwholesome carbon compounds.
The storm gave him an idea, though, so he flattened his course toward the thunderhead. Rain would stymie eyesight, and lightning would confuse instruments. Maybe even the eye-in-the sky droids the patrol was undoubtedly tapping into. If he and Klin-Fa got through that, maybe he could circle back and find the No Luck Required before the security fliers picked up the trail. If the ship was repaired, then they might be able to get off-planet before the port authority shut them down. If . . .
He grinned tightly, remembering what Vega would say: “If” is just a short way of saying, “we’re doomed.”
“Are those guys Peace Brigade?” Uldir shouted to the girl.
“You mentioned them before,” she shot back. “I never heard of them.”
Uldir arched an eyebrow. That was surprising. “They’re a collaborationist organization,” he told her. “They figure we can’t beat the Yuuzhan Vong, so they might as well join them, get in their good graces while it’s still possible. Sometimes they infiltrate local law enforcement.”
Klin-Fa snorted. “Nobody in the Corporate Authority ever needed prompting when there was any potential for profit, and the ‘zecs don’t deal with middle-men unless they have to. There’s a Yuuzhan Vong executor on this planet even as we speak. I’m guessing the ‘zecs cut their own deal.”
“What? But that violates the neutrality pact.”
“I’ll bet it doesn’t. CSA attorneys can find a loophole when there isn’t even a loop.”
The cloud loomed, but the fliers were getting too close. He dipped lower, dropping into one of the arroyos that crawled downhill toward the spaceport.
“I guess you can fly,” Klin-Fa conceded reluctantly, leaping over the cockpit to land on their stern, now the most threatened portion of the ship.
“You don’t say?” Uldir retorted. “Gosh, I’m glad you told me. I’d never have known. Now I’m all beaming and confidant. I just know I can get us out of this.”
She ignored the sarcasm. “Rescue flier, huh?” she mused. “Who do you rescue?”
“Jedi, mostly.”
Klin-Fa blocked a bolt aimed for their rear stabilizer and shot him a strange look. “What?” She asked. “Who do you work for?”
“The paychit comes from the New Republic Search and Rescue Corps, but that’s sort of a cover. The orders come from Master Skywalker, ultimately. He’s been organizing a network to move Jedi out of danger for months.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said. “I’ve been . . . out of touch. I didn’t even know about the warmaster’s ultimatum until yesterday.”
That explained why she didn’t know about the Peace Brigade either. “Where were you that you didn’t hear about that?” Uldir asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’ll understand if I don’t just volunteer that information.”
“Hey, you’re the Jedi. Can’t you tell if I’m lying, or a threat?”
She hesitated. “I’ve been fooled before,” she admitted. “Just understand this -- I’m on a mission, also for Master Skywalker. I’ve discovered something of utmost importance, a dire threat to the New Republic.”
“But you won’t tell me what it is?”
“No.”
Uldir was impressed at how impassive she remained. Though his crazy course through the canyons had them temporarily free of blaster fire, it couldn’t be easy for her to keep her footing, yet she hadn’t even blinked. She had liquid helium in her veins, this girl.
“We’re about to plow straight into a storm,” he said. “Maybe you ought to get back into the cockpit.”
“Storm? No. Maybe you ought to -- watch out!”
Uldir jerked on the stick, mentally tasking himself for becoming distracted. One of the security fliers had somehow worked its way up a side canyon and was now quite suddenly in front of him. Blaster fire scorched along their underbelly, and the craft jerked like a harpooned toukfin. The power system whined, and all of the indicators on the board went dead. The flier dropped as Uldir frantically jiggled at the re-route to emergency systems.
The power failure lasted only an instant, but it was a gut-plunging one, and he was now on a collision course with the offending flier. He banked hard to port, momentarily forgetting he had a passenger balanced on his prow. Klin-Fa didn’t seem to mind -- she deftly shifted to stand on the narrow part of the flier now presented to the sky, crouched, and cut downward at the other vehicle. Uldir saw a shear of sparks before the impact. It was a glancing blow, and their opponent went gyring away missing a good chunk of its nose. Uldir was vaguely aware of the crunching sound it made as it plowed into a canyon wall, but most of his attention was focused on avoiding the same fate. The repulsors sputtered again, and with a silent curse he rose out of the arroyo, unable to trust his craft enough to maneuver there anymore.
It was then, facing the black wall of the storm, that he realized he didn’t see Klin-Fa. His last maneuvers must have dislodged her.
He dug into a sharp turn -- hoping to spot her and hoping as well that her Jedi abilities had helped her survive the fall -- when a shout from below got his attention. He saw the young Jedi clinging to the craft’s magnetic mooring lock by the fingers of one hand.
“Hang on!” Uldir locked the course for the storm and reached into the dash compartment, coming out with an enforcement special blaster. Then he climbed out of the cockpit and onto the nose of the craft, waving his arms for balance.
The three remaining fliers were catching up quickly, and the air was brittle with ionized death. Uldir dropped to his belly and reached over the brink, grasping Klin-Fa by the wrist. She locked her own fingers around his wrist in turn and dangled in space, whirling her lightsaber to deflect a blaster bolt that would have cut her in half. Uldir stood, hauling her up, watching in amazeme
nt as she continued to fend off attacks. With his free hand he grimly fired at the lead police craft, which was coming in way too fast. He grazed it twice, then hit the cockpit a glancing blow that must have hurt the pilot, because the craft peeled off suddenly. Then two concussions in a row rocked his flier so badly that Uldir nearly lost his footing. He swung the Jedi back onto the bow just as the first of the rain spattered around them.
“Back in the cockpit!” he shouted. The craft was beginning to list weirdly toward starboard, indicating a probably fatal malfunction in one of the stabilizers.
Another bolt hit them as they made it to the crash seats, and then, as if they had passed under a curtain, the rain was driving so hard Uldir couldn’t see anything. He flipped on the weather shield, and the water began sheeting off against its field, but visibility didn’t increase in the slightest.
An eighteen-headed dragon of lightning howled around them, and Uldir’s neck hairs pricked to attention. The sound was like the implosion of a planet.
“Sithspit!” Klin-Fa shouted. “What have you done to us?”
“You don’t see our friends anymore, do you?”
“No. They’d know better than to fly into a sweeper storm.”
“A what?”
“Bonadan has weather control stations all over it. You don’t think this is natural, do you? They generate these on the outskirts when the air gets too caustic for the miners. The rain and lightning precipitates some of the crud they put in the sky every day.”
“Oh. Your point?”
“My point is, it’s more concentrated and violent than a normal storm, jets-for-brains. The funnel around the eye is designed to create maximum ionization.”
“Maximum -- uh-oh.”
It had been getting darker, but in the not-to-distance he saw sheets of lighting dancing like nebula veils.
“So we don’t want to go there, huh?” Uldir grunted, frantically pulling the stick starboard. Nothing happened. The ship was carrying them nowhere but the heart of the storm.
“No. So get us out of here already,” Klin-Fa shouted. Even through the windscreen, the sound of the storm was almost deafening.
“I can’t. I locked the controls when I went out to get you. They’re still locked.”
“Well, unlock them, vac-brain!”
Uldir continued flipping switches. “Not happening,” he said.
“Well, what, then?”
“Hang on, I guess.”
He pointed the blaster at the rear repulsor assembly and fired.
“Are you insane?” Klin-Fa shrieked.
“I wasn’t before I met you,” Uldir replied. “Now I’d need a professional opinion.” He fired again, and the flier seemed to sag against the wind. The bow dropped nearly perpendicular to the ground.
“Like I said,” Uldir remarked, as another net of lightning crackled completely around them, “hang on.”
He felt a tingle then that did not come from the lightning, and he recognized it as a movement in the Force. He might not be sensitive enough to actually wield it, but he had been around the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, and had learned to recognize its use.
Especially now, when it felt somehow wrong. He looked at Klin-Fa and found her eyes shut and her face utterly composed. For some reason that was momentarily terrifying. Then he didn’t have any more time to think about it, because they hit the ground, skipped, tumbled, and hit again. The screen went down, and rain was suddenly smothering them. After that, darkness.
* * *
Uldir woke spitting water from his mouth and feeling the painful itch of it in his lungs. One of the flier’s running lights shone murkily from beneath the surface. Other than that, the darkness was broken only by the terrible white and red flares of lightning that grew more extreme with each second. The rain was mixed with hail now, which struck painfully against the bare skin of his face, and the thunder was an almost uninterrupted roar. The torrents unleashed from the sky were continuing to sculpt the arroyo he’d crashed in as it had been doing since the natural vegetation of Bonadan had given up its tenuous hold on existence. The flier was fetched up against something and filling quickly with water.
In the dull light, he made out Klin-Fa Gi, slumped unconscious, her face just out of the water. He felt for her pulse and, to his relief, found it strong. When he failed to wake her, he got her in a swim carry, holding her from behind so her head would remain above the surface. Even as he did this, the level and speed of the flood rose, and swiftly. He had to get to higher ground; that much was obvious. Not too high, though -- lightning had a lofty aim, and Uldir already felt like he was on a target range for a tactical air-to-planet assault force.
The current took him, and it was far too strong to fight. He pointed his feet downstream, using his boots to protect him from rocks and other obstacles. This was awkward, as it put Klin-Fa on top of him, and his head went under with regularity. He’d been trained for this sort of situation, however, as part of his preparation for rescue flying, and the little voice of panic that threatened to become a shout kept relatively quiet. All he had to do was keep his head, he told himself. And his arms, and his legs . . .
When he started to feel the shock of the lightning, that became more difficult to do. Nightmare images of stone and turbid water strobed every few seconds, so he had almost a continuous view of his surroundings now. Kicking from a protruding rock, he aimed himself at what looked like a slope that might take him above flood capacity. He nearly missed it, but he managed to get a clawhold on a rock and -- pulling against the immensely strong current -- drag himself and the Jedi onto the incline. He lay panting there for a moment until a bolt struck so close that he felt the hot spray of spalled stone on his cheek. With a grunt, he got Klin-Fa on his shoulder and made for what looked like a sort of overhang.
His luck held; it was indeed a small cave in the side of the canyon. It went in deep enough to be dry. He hoped it was also deep enough not to conduct a lightning strike, and high enough that the flood wouldn’t fill it, because he didn’t have a joule of strength left. He lay in the darkness, trying not to flinch at the barrage outside, promising himself that the next time a girl upset his drink he’d just buy another one.
Outside, it seemed the planet was burning, the thunder become like the sound of a fusion drive blowing in atmosphere. He closed his eyes against the glare and waited for it to pass.
It did, finally, and an eerie calm settled as the eye went over. Then Uldir was treated to another fireworks display, courtesy of Bonadan weather control.
When the lightning finally receded, he began to realize he was cold. Was it winter here? Did Bonadan have a winter? He couldn’t remember. Maybe when the renewed search found them, they would find a couple of frozen corpses.
By the light of a glowstick he had in one of his many pockets, he examined Klin-Fa with the small medpack he always carried. A nasty swelling on her head indicated the cause of her continued unconsciousness, but otherwise she seemed sound -- he couldn’t find any evidence of broken bones or internal bleeding.
He gave her a broad-spectrum anti-inflammatory and antibiotic, made her as comfortable as he could, then turned to his remaining resources.
That consisted more-or-less of his comlink. He handled the small cylinder thoughtfully for a moment, considering. It had been modified with a trace-scrambler -- though any searchers in the area would know he was transmitting, it would take a security decryption to allow them to triangulate. The CSA probably had pretty decent technology in that area, but he could probably transmit for thirty seconds or so before they had enough data to either unscramble the message or pinpoint his position.
It was getting colder. It was worth the risk. He keyed it on.
Static roared, probably due to the nearby storm. Still, after a second, he made out a distorted version of Vega Sepen’s voice.
“Hey, boss-boy,” she said. “You really should follow my advice now and then.”
“Listen, Vega,” Uldir said. “The gir
l was a Jedi, turns out. We’ve eluded pursuit for the time being, but we’re down in the outback, maybe fifteen klicks southeast of town.”
“Those aren’t very good directions.”
“Just look for wherever the police fliers are shooting,” he said.
“With what? The ship’s still in dock.”
“I trust you, Vega. You’ll think of something. Gotta go, before they trace this.”
“Okay. Good luck, boss-boy.”
“I hate it when you call me that.”
“I know.” The signal crackled out, and Uldir keyed off the comlink. He was probably still safe, but the next time he used it they would find his location in seconds.
Klin-Fa stirred and moaned. He touched her forehead and found it cold. He’d actually started shivering himself, from the wet and the falling temperature. With a sigh, he drew off his jacket. He lay next to the young Jedi, spooning against her, and covered them both with the jacket. It took a long time before the contact began to feel warm.
* * *
He woke with dark eyes centimeters from his own.
“Did you enjoy that?” Klin-Fa asked.
“Huh?”
“Snuggling up against me? Is that your idea of a good time?”
“Hey, I was just trying to keep us warm. Keep you warm.”
She almost smiled. “Relax, jets-for-brains,” she said. “I know what you were doing, and thanks. Just don’t get any ideas.”
Uldir realized their bodies were still touching, and he felt suddenly and completely uncomfortable. “What? No, of course not.”
She tapped his forehead with her finger. “Right. I didn’t think there was that much danger of an idea popping out of there, but you never know.”
“Hey, I was doing more thinking than you were last night.”
“I bet you were.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His face felt tingly.
She sat up. Harsh yellow-white light glared through the entrance to the cave. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere in the badlands south of town. Our flier went down, you may remember.”
