by Timothy Zahn
Fired safely over the crowd, of course—there was no possible way for him to aim accurately enough to hit the Imperial, even if he’d wanted to. But even a clean miss was enough to jolt the stormtroopers into action. The Imperials who’d been checking faces and IDs abandoned their task to push through the crowd toward the man in the robe, while those guarding the ends of the street hurried forward into backup positions.
It was, not surprisingly, too much for the man in the robe. Shaking away the blaster that had inexplicably become attached to his hand, he slipped past the frozen onlookers beside him and disappeared into a narrow alleyway.
Luke didn’t wait to see any more. The minute anyone got a good look at the fleeing man’s face, the diversion would be over, and he had to be off this roof and on his way to the landing field before that happened. Sidling to the edge of his narrow ledge, he looked down.
It didn’t look promising. Built to withstand two-hundred-kilometer winds, it was perfectly smooth, with no protuberances that could get caught in eddy currents. Nor were there any windows, service doors, or other openings visible. That, at least, shouldn’t be a problem; he could cut himself a makeshift doorway with his lightsaber if it came to that. The real question was how to get out of range of the Imperials’ trap before they started hunting him in earnest.
He glanced back. And he had to do it fast. From the direction of the official landing area at the far end of the city, the distant specks of airspeeders had begun to appear over the squat city buildings.
He couldn’t drop back down on the street side without attracting unwelcome attention. He couldn’t crawl along the narrow upper edge of the shield-barrier, at least not fast enough to get out of sight before the airspeeders got here. Which left him only one direction. Down.
But not necessarily straight down …
He squinted into the sky. Poderis’s sun was nearly to the horizon, moving almost visibly through its ten-hour circuit. Right now its light was shining straight into the eyes of the approaching airspeeder pilots, but within five minutes it would be completely below the horizon. Giving the searchers a clear view again, and leaving behind a dusk where a lightsaber blade would be instantly visible.
It was now or never.
Pulling his lightsaber from beneath his robe, Luke ignited it, making sure to keep the glowing green blade out of sight of the approaching airspeeders. Using the tip, he carefully made a shallow cut to the right and a few degrees down across the slanting shield-barrier. His robe was made of relatively flimsy material, and it took only a second to tear off the left sleeve and wrap it around the fingertips of his left hand. The padded fingers slipped easily into the groove he’d just made, with enough room to slide freely along it. Getting a firm grip, he set the tip of his lightsaber blade into the end of the groove and rolled off the ledge. Supported by his fingertips, the lightsaber held outstretched in his right hand carving out his path for him as he went, he slid swiftly across and down the shield-barrier.
It was at the same time exhilarating and terrifying. Memories flooded back: the wind whipping past him as he fell through the center core of the Cloud City of Bespin hanging literally by his fingertips barely minutes later beneath the city; lying exhausted on the floor in the second Death Star, sensing through his pain the enraged helplessness of the Emperor as Vader hurled him to his death. Beneath his chest and legs, the smooth surface of the shield-barrier slid past, marking his rapid approach to the edge and the empty space beyond. …
Lifting his head, blinking against the wind slapping into his face, he looked over his shoulder. The lethal edge was visible now, racing upward toward him at what felt like breakneck speed. Closer and closer it came … and then, at the last second, he changed the angle of his lightsaber. The downward path of his fingerguide shifted toward horizontal, and a few seconds later he slid smoothly to a halt.
For a moment he just hung there, dangling precariously by one hand as he caught his breath and got his heartbeat back under control. Above him, its edge catching the last rays of the setting sun, he could see the groove he’d just cut, angling up and to his left. Over a hundred meters to his left, he estimated. Hopefully, far enough to put him outside the Imperials’ trap.
He’d find out soon enough.
Behind him, the sun dipped below the horizon, erasing the thin line of his passage. Moving carefully, trying not to dislodge his straining fingertips, he began to cut a hole through the shield-barrier.
“Report from the stormtrooper commander, Admiral,” Pellaeon called, grimacing as he read it off his comm display. “Skywalker does not appear to be within the cordon.”
“I’m not surprised,” Thrawn said darkly, glowering at his displays. “I’ve warned Intelligence repeatedly about underestimating the range of Skywalker’s sensing abilities. Obviously, they didn’t take me seriously.”
Pellaeon swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. But we know he was there, and he couldn’t have gotten very far. The stormtroopers have established a secondary cordon and begun a building-to-building search.”
Thrawn took a deep breath, then let it out. “No,” he said, his voice even again. “He didn’t go into any of the buildings. Not Skywalker. That little diversion with the decoy and the blaster …” He looked at Pellaeon. “Up, Captain. He went up onto the rooftops.”
“The spotters are already sweeping that direction,” Pellaeon said. “If he’s up there, they’ll spot him.”
“Good.” Thrawn tapped a switch on his command console, calling up a holographic map of that section of the mesa. “What about the shield-barrier on the west edge of the cordon? Can it be climbed?”
“Our people here say no,” Pellaeon shook his head. “Too smooth and too sharply angled, with no lip or other barrier at the bottom. If Skywalker went up that side of the street, he’s still there. Or at the bottom of the mesa.”
“Perhaps,” Thrawn said. “Assign one of the spotters to search that area anyway. What about Skywalker’s ship?”
“Intelligence is still trying to identify which one is his,” Pellaeon admitted. “There’s some problem with the records. We should have it in a few more minutes.”
“Minutes which we no longer have, thanks to their shadower’s carelessness,” Thrawn bit out. “He’s to be demoted one grade.”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, logging the order. A rather severe punishment, but it could have been far worse. The late Lord Vader would have summarily strangled the man. “The landing field itself is surrounded, of course.”
Thrawn rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “A probable waste of time,” he said slowly. “On the other hand …”
He turned his head to gaze out the viewport at the slowly rotating planet. “Pull them off, Captain,” he ordered. “All except the clone troopers. Leave those on guard near the likeliest possibilities for Skywalker’s ship.”
Pellaeon blinked. “Sir?”
Thrawn turned back to face him, a fresh glint in those glowing red eyes. “The landing field cordon doesn’t have nearly enough ysalamiri to stop a Jedi, Captain. So we won’t bother trying. We’ll let him get his ship into space, and take him with the Chimaera.”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, feeling his forehead furrow. “But then …”
“Why leave the clones?” Thrawn finished for him. “Because while Skywalker is valuable to us, the same is not true of his astromech droid.” He smiled slightly. “Unless, of course, Skywalker’s heroic efforts to escape Poderis convince it that this is indeed the main conduit for our clone traffic.”
“Ah,” Pellaeon said, finally understanding. “In which case, we find a way to allow the droid to escape back to the Rebellion?”
“Exactly,” Thrawn gestured to Pellaeon’s board. “Orders, Captain.”
“Yes, sir.” Pellaeon turned back to his board, feeling a cautious stirring of excitement as he began issuing the Grand Admiral’s commands. Maybe this time Skywalker would finally be theirs.
Artoo was jabbering nervously when Luke finally charge
d through the door of their small freighter and slapped the seal behind him. “Everything ready to go?” he shouted over his shoulder to the droid as he hurried to the cockpit alcove.
Artoo trilled back an affirmative. Luke dropped into the pilot’s seat, giving the instruments a quick once-over as he strapped himself in. “Okay,” he called back. “Here we go.”
Throwing power to the repulsorlifts, Luke kicked the freighter clear of the ground, wrenching it hard to star-board. A pair of Skipray blastboats rose with him, moving into tandem pursuit formation as he headed for the edge of the mesa. “Watch those Skiprays, Artoo,” Luke called, splitting his own attention between the rapidly approaching city’s edge and the airspace above them. The fight with those clone troopers guarding the landing field had been intense, but it had been far too brief to be realistic. Either the Empire had left someone totally incompetent in charge, or they’d let him get to his ship on purpose. Carefully herding him into the real trap …
The edge of the mesa shot past beneath him. Luke threw a quick glance at the rear display to confirm that he was clear of the city, then punched in the main sublight drive.
The freighter shot skyward like a scalded mynock, leaving the pursuing Skiprays flatfooted in its wake. The official-sounding orders to halt that had been blaring from the board turned into a surprised yelp as Luke reached over and shut the comm off. “Artoo? You all right back there?”
The droid chirped an affirmative, and a question scrolled across Luke’s computer screen. “They were clones, all right,” he confirmed grimly, an uncomfortable shiver running through him. The strange aura that seemed to surround the Empire’s new duplicate humans was twice as eerie up close. “I’ll tell you something else, too,” he added to Artoo. “The Imperials knew it was me they were chasing. Those stormtroopers were carrying ysalamiri on their backs.”
Artoo whistled thoughtfully, gave a questioning gurgle. “Right—that whole Delta Source thing,” Luke agreed, reading the droid’s comment. “Leia told me that if we couldn’t get the leak closed fast, she was going to recommend we move operations out of the Imperial Palace. Maybe even off Coruscant entirely.”
Though if Delta Source was a human or alien spy instead of some impossibly undetectable listening system in the Palace itself, moving anywhere would just be so much wasted effort. From Artoo’s rather pointed silence, Luke guessed the droid was thinking that, too.
The distant horizon, barely visible as dark planet against dark but starlit sky, was starting to show a visible curvature now. “Better start calculating our jump to lightspeed, Artoo,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re probably going to have to get out of here in a hurry.”
He got a confirming beep from the droid’s position and turned his attention back to the horizon ahead. A whole fleet of Star Destroyers, he knew, could be lurking below that horizon, out of range of his instruments, waiting for him to get too far from any possible cover to launch their attack.
Out of range of his instruments, but perhaps not out of range of Jedi senses. Closing his eyes to slits, flooding his mind with calmness, he stretched out through the Force—
He got it an instant before Artoo’s startled warning shrill shattered the air. An Imperial Star Destroyer all right; but not cutting across his path as Luke had expected. Instead, it was coming up from behind, in an atmosphere-top forced orbit that had allowed it to build up speed without sacrificing the advantages of planetary cover.
“Hang on!” Luke shouted, throwing emergency power to the drive. But it was a futile gesture, and both he and the Imperials knew it. The Star Destroyer was coming up fast, its tractor beams already activated and tracking him. Within a handful of seconds, they were going to get him.
Or at least, they were going to get the freighter …
Luke hit his strap release, opening a disguised panel as he did so and touching the three switches hidden there. The first switch keyed in the limited autopilot; the second unlocked the aft proton torpedo launcher and started it firing blindly back toward the Star Destroyer.
The third activated the freighter’s self-destruct.
His X-wing was wedged nose forward in the cargo area behind the cockpit alcove, looking for all the world like some strange metallic animal peering out of its burrow. Luke leaped to the open canopy, coming within an ace of cracking his head on the freighter’s low ceiling in the process. Artoo, already snugged into the X-wing’s droid socket, was jabbering softly to himself as he ran the star-fighter’s systems from standby to full ready. Even as Luke strapped in and pulled on his flight helmet, the droid signaled they were clear to fly.
“Okay,” Luke told him, resting his left hand on the special switch that had been added to his control board. “If this is going to work, we’re going to have to time it just right. Be ready.”
Again he closed his eyes, letting the Force flow through his senses. Once before, on his first attempt to locate the Jedi Master C’baoth, he’d tangled like this with the Imperials—an X-wing against an Imperial Star Destroyer. That, too, had been a deliberate ambush, though he hadn’t realized it until C’baoth’s unholy alliance with the Empire had been laid bare. In that battle, skill and luck and the Force had saved him.
This time, if the specialists back at Coruscant had done their job right, the luck was already built in.
With his mind deeply into the Force, he sensed the locking of the tractor beam a half second before it actually occurred. His hand jabbed the switch; and even as the freighter jerked in the tractor beam’s powerful grip, the front end blew apart into a cloud of metallic shards. An instant later, kicked forward by a deck-mounted blast-booster, the X-wing shot through the glittering debris. For a long, heart-stopping moment it seemed as though the tractor beam was going to be able to maintain its hold despite the obscuring particle fog. Then, all at once, the grip slackened and was gone.
“We’re free!” Luke shouted back at Artoo, rolling the X-wing over and driving hard for deep space. “I’m going evasive—hang on.”
He rolled the X-wing again, and as he did so a pair of brilliant green flashes shot past the transparisteel canopy. With their tractor beams outdistanced, the Imperials had apparently decided to settle for shooting him out of the sky. Another barrage of green flame scorched past, and there was a yelp from Artoo as something burned through the deflectors to slap against the X-wings underside. Reaching out again to the Force, Luke let it guide his hands on the controls—
And then, almost without warning, it was time. Reaching to the hyperdrive lever, Luke pulled it back.
With a flicker of pseudomotion, the X-wing vanished into the safety of hyperspace, the Chimaera’s turbolaser batteries still firing uselessly for a second at where it had been. The batteries fell silent; and Pellaeon let out a long breath, afraid to look over at Thrawn’s command station. It was the second time Skywalker had escaped from this kind of trap … and the last time he’d done so, a man had died for that failure.
The rest of the bridge crew hadn’t forgotten that, either. In the brittle silence the faint rustling of cloth against seat material was clearly audible as Thrawn stood up. “Well,” the Grand Admiral said, his voice strangely calm. “One must give the Rebels full credit for ingenuity. I’ve seen that trick worked before, but not nearly so effectively.”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, trying without success to hide the strain in his voice.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Thrawn looking at him. “At ease, Captain,” the Grand Admiral said soothingly. “Skywalker would have made an interesting package to present to Master C’baoth, but his escape is hardly cause for major concern. The primary objective of this exercise was to convince the Rebellion that they’d discovered the clone conduit. That objective has been achieved.”
The tightness in Pellaeon’s chest began to dissipate. If the Grand Admiral wasn’t angry about it …
“That does not mean, however,” Thrawn went on, “that the actions of the Chimaera’s crew should be ignored.
Come with me, Captain.”
Pellaeon got to his feet, the tightness returning. “Yes, sir.”
Thrawn led the way to the aft stairway and descended to the starboard crew pit. He walked past the crewers at their consoles, past the officers standing stiffly behind them, and came to a halt at the control station for the starboard tractor beams. “Your name,” he said quietly to the young man standing at rigid attention there.
“Ensign Mithel,” the other said, his face pale but composed. The expression of a man facing his death.
“Tell me what happened, Ensign.”
Mithel swallowed. “Sir, I had just established a positive lock on the freighter when it broke up into a cluster of trac-reflective particles. The targeting system tried to lock on all of them at once and went into a loop snarl.”
“And what did you do?”
“I—sir, I knew that if I waited for the particles to dissipate normally, the target starfighter would be out of range. So I tried to dissipate them myself by shifting the tractor beam into sheer-plane mode.”
“It didn’t work.”
A quiet sigh slipped through Mithel’s lips. “No, sir. The target-lock system couldn’t handle it. It froze up completely.”
“Yes.” Thrawn cocked his head slightly. “You’ve had a few moments now to consider your actions, Ensign. Can you think of anything you should have done instead?”
The young man’s lip twitched. “No, sir. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I don’t remember anything in the manual that covers this kind of situation.”
Thrawn nodded. “Correct,” he agreed. “There isn’t anything. Several methods have been suggested over the past few decades for counteracting the covert shroud gambit, none of which has ever been made practical. Yours was one of the more innovative attempts, particularly given how little time you had to come up with it. The fact that it failed does not in any way diminish that.”
A look of cautious disbelief was starting to edge into Mithel’s face. “Sir?”