“Right here,” Hera said, slamming on the braking jets. The glowing ionic thrusters of the third TIE appeared in the space before them. Kanan swung his targeting mechanism and hit the trigger. Hera pumped her fist as the starfighter blew itself apart.
Kanan glanced at Skelly, looking rocky as Zaluna held him up. Skelly outweighed the woman, but she was doing her best to keep him in place. Kanan implored him. “Come on, Skelly. We’re there. Focus!”
Skelly squinted at the surface as Hera descended. There was a tower on the far horizon, nothing more than a needle on an ocean of white. A cluster of ships could be seen heading for the area. “That way!”
The alert clarion sounded on the bridge of Ultimatum. “Scramble wings fourteen, fifteen, seventeen,” Sloane said. “Pursue freighter, hereafter tagged Renegade One. Take them down!”
The captain stood by the holographic tracking display and watched the action with bewilderment. She’d ordered the Star Destroyer to remain on its station, overseeing the convoy route and protecting Forager—but what was going on over the surface of Cynda defied belief. And it had all started with that bizarre message from Kanan.
“Renegade One is pursuing the other baradium haulers,” said a fresh-faced ensign. Young Cauley had been trying his best to track the zigzagging renegade—but nothing it did made any sense.
“They’re trying to destroy the freighters?”
“No, Captain. Just the TIE fighters accompanying them. The freighters should be easier targets, but it’s just, well—” The headset-wearing ensign gawked at his monitor. Sloane stepped behind him to watch the chase. The runaway was peeling away the escorts of the fully laden cargo ships—and then seemingly shooting to miss, aiming just in front of the vessels.
“Harassing fire,” she said. Kanan—pilot, insurrectionist, would-be Imperial agent? Whatever he was, he was definitely aboard that ship and trying to prevent the others from landing their cargo. His threatening message had set the stage for chaos. “Method to the madness. He’s scaring them away.”
“And doing a good job of it,” Ensign Cauley said. He pointed to the screen. “He gets anywhere near a freighter and they try to peel off.”
Sloane looked back at the holographic tracking display. One by one, baradium freighters were switching off their ID transponders, fearful of having Kanan come after them. It was only adding to the confusion. Has everybody on Gorse tangled with this character?
Cauley tapped his earpiece. “I’ve got a TIE pilot chasing after the hauler he’s escorting now. It’s fleeing, afraid of being targeted by Renegade One. Our pilot’s asking if he can shoot his hauler down.”
“What? No!” Sloane froze. She’d told Vidian she’d allow nothing to interfere with the explosives delivery, and they’d sent more than his project needed. But how much more? “Tell our pilot to stick with the ship he’s convoying as best he can until our reinforcements arrive. Tell him if he can run interference—”
“Never mind,” Cauley said, removing his headset. “Renegade One just shot our pilot down.”
Sloane clenched her fists. “Pull all escort wings in that area off their duty. Send them all against Kanan!”
“Against who, Captain?”
“Renegade One!” Quaking in anger, she pointed outside. “The guy shooting at everyone!”
Kanan checked his sights again as Hera banked Expedient into another S-turn. She’d been weaving between the injection tower on the Cyndan surface and the landing area nearby, where tracked Imperial ground vehicles were moving baradium canisters across the ice from the freighters.
He wasn’t about to target anything directly: Shooting the tower, Skelly had said, might set off the world-destroying reaction by accident. And killing mining workers in the freighters or on the icecrawlers would make him no better than Vidian. Instead, he continued strafing the areas the workers had to cross, while preventing any more ships from landing. He wouldn’t kill civilians, but he had nothing against scaring the daylights out of them for a good cause.
“Not exactly an ideal way to raise a collective consciousness,” Hera said as he fired another volley just beneath a freighter attempting a landing.
“Recruit allies on your own time. This is getting attention, the Gorse way!”
Trouble was, he was running out of targets. “Skelly, where’s the next primary tower?”
“Forget it,” Hera snapped. Yanking on the control yoke, she sent a reluctant Expedient into a groaning upward spiral. Kanan saw why as the ship twisted: a sky full of TIE fighters, rocketing toward them.
A loud beeping noise came from his gunnery controls. The indicator said the weapons turret was overheating. He looked at Hera and shook his head. “This thing’s rated to move some pebbles around. That’s about it!”
“I think our engines could go at any minute.” She sighed in exasperation as Expedient hurtled back toward orbit.
“Safest thing on board is the baradium!” It was a perversely lucky thing, Kanan thought: The many bumps, slams, and near-misses Expedient had suffered would have set his regular cargo off in a heartbeat. The ridiculously more powerful Baby on board at least had the benefit of containers that secured to the shelving.
Gorse appeared in front of them again, with Forager hanging before it. Its spokes were open, a gigantic metal bloom at the front of the vessel. Kanan blanched at the size of it. “Can we take out that thing?”
Hera checked her instruments and shook her head. “Big energy shield around it.” She pointed Expedient outward, away from the ever-approaching wave of TIE fighters. It gave them a better look at Forager from the side, but that was about it. It was useless.
Kanan released the gunnery controls. He’d left imprints on them with his hands, he saw. He rubbed his forehead. “Anybody else got a plan?”
No one said anything for a moment.
Then a voice came from behind. “I think we can do Plan Two.”
Kanan looked back to see Zaluna trying to squeeze past Skelly. She was looking outward, at Forager. “Which one was Plan Two?” Kanan asked.
“I thought Plan Two was slowing down the injection process,” Skelly said, hanging on to Hera’s chair.
Zaluna shook her head. “No, that’s Plan Three. Plan One was informing on Count Vidian. Plan Two was warning people. Plan Three was slowing down the injection—”
“Can we stop this?” Hera pleaded. She nodded to the left and smiled politely at Zaluna. “TIE fighter fleet in two minutes, remember?”
The woman pointed ahead at Forager. “Okay. Look up there.” Behind the rimless wagon wheel that was the collection array stretched seven globes, connected in a line. The one at the ship’s front, nearest the spokes, had a lighted crew area at top—and a big round dish atop that. “That’s an Imperial subspace transmitter.”
“I didn’t see that,” Kanan said. “Good eyes.”
“That’s what they paid me for.” Zaluna grinned. “I can tap into the Transcept systems on that thing and send our warning to Gorse. They won’t know to jam that.”
Kanan stared. “That ship’s where Vidian is now. We’d have to get you in there to do your thing.”
Zaluna shrank a little at that, but didn’t shirk. “I know.”
“And maybe we can even keep Vidian from sending the trigger command to Cynda,” Hera said.
“Two for one,” Kanan said. “Happy hour.”
“You’re going to want a stiff drink or two after this,” Hera said, bringing Expedient around in a wide arc. She looked at him. “This is not what you’d consider a safe bet. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Kanan took a deep breath. It wasn’t even a dare he’d take on his drunkest day. It was insane—but it had all been. And he had to admit he’d felt better these past few days doing something—even a stupid something—than he’d felt in years of running. “I’ve got nothing else to do. Let’s go for it.”
“All right.” Hera looked at the Sullustan. “Strap yourself in, Zal. Everybody else—hang on!”
As a guild safety inspector, he’d given edicts to police but had no power to enforce them, as his corrupt supervisors constantly undermined him. He’d transformed his image and position such that no one could say no to him—and yet people tried anyway, trying to protect their old ways of doing things.
The gunslinger and his friends, it was obvious, were trying to prevent him from destroying the moon. Were they saboteurs working for Baron Danthe? The baron had set up the near-impossible production threshold for Vidian to meet; he might well fear the acclaim success would give the count. And Vidian knew the baron had spies about, inquiring after Vidian’s “independent consultant,” Lemuel Tharsa. If so, then Vidian was all the more ready to destroy the moon. No one would say no to him in this.
He retained the upper hand now, through his logic and careful preparations. The berserk antics of the fool pilot had changed nothing. He’d added his own precautions to Skelly’s scheme, and those included dispatching more baradium haulers than were necessary. Already, the redundant vessels were moving into the area recently harried by the renegade. It would only mean a little lost time, not enough for the xenoboric acid to destroy the bombs he was implanting in the moon. It was the same kind of acid Lal had fallen into on Gorse, a refining necessity; Forager was full of the stuff. But it wouldn’t devour his plan.
And the one random variable was about to be canceled out. The run-amok freighter was out of space to roam, hemmed in between the collector ship’s weapons and the swarm of TIE fighters now arriving on the scene. He’d thought of everything. It was his strength, his power. One day, the difference between success and failure for the Empire might be a simple thing someone else would overlook. It would not be his fault, and would never happen on his watch. He would see everything, and act.
“We are at a safe distance from the target moon,” he said. “Reorient to face it.”
The engines thrummed, and Cynda came fully into glistening view. Vidian didn’t bother to look at it for more than a second.
“Give me an update on the enemy,” he commanded the nearest cybernetic assistant. Vidian never used the bald woman’s name; it didn’t seem necessary, after her surgery.
“The freighter has not attacked,” she droned. “It is circling. Probing Forager’s energy shield.”
“Is there a weakness?”
“No, my lord. The only gap in the energy shield is rearward, along the horizontal axis of the vessel. The thrusters produce a flux when ignited.”
Vidian froze. The engines had just been activated a few moments earlier. And it was at the tail of the ship, above the thrusters, where the shipping bays sat, open to space …
“Proximity alarm!” the female cyborg said. “Unauthorized vessel on approach!”
Vidian was already looking at the scene, his optical feed having been switched to the rear external cams. Pursued madly by half a dozen TIE fighters—and those were just the ones in firing range—the errant freighter raced toward Forager’s aft. “What are you waiting for?” Vidian said. “All defensive turrets, fire!”
Outside, Expedient rocketed through the cross fire toward the rear of Forager. Rows of landing bays perched atop and tucked beneath the glowing thrusters, open to space. “An open door’s as good as an invitation,” Hera said.
But the freighter was going far too fast, Kanan thought. “This’ll be close!”
At the last instant, Hera fired Expedient’s attitude control jets, spinning the vessel around 180 degrees. The ship entered the bay tail-first, piercing the magnetic screen. Hera fired the main thrusters, burning off speed—not to mention the chrome off any loader droids in their path.
Expedient struck the landing surface, scraping noisily across the deck as it slid inward. It was a long hangar, and the freighter needed all of it to slow down. Kanan clutched the armrests, knowing the back wall had to be there somewhere …
A violent jolt shook the vessel, rocking Count Vidian’s underlings. Above, a droid slipped between the catwalk and the railing and fell to the main deck with a crash.
Vidian, prepared for the impact, was unshaken. “All troops aboard Forager,” he transmitted, “stand by to repel boarders. Enough is enough!”
“We’re still alive!”
Skelly had said it, but Kanan was as amazed as anyone. And Hera was simply straightening her gloves as if nothing had happened.
“You’re incredible,” Kanan said. “I’m permanently moving to the passenger seat.”
“Time to get out of it.” Hera stood, checked her weapons, and made for the airlock. “Come on, Zal!”
Zaluna took a deep breath and retrieved her pouch of electronic magic from behind the acceleration couch. She met Hera at the door.
Vidian was almost certainly at the head of Forager, where the transmitter was. “Do you have anything else aboard we can use?” Hera asked Kanan. “We don’t know the layout.”
“I think so.” Adjusting his holster, Kanan walked down the aisle to a storage compartment. He knelt before the bin and opened it. There, beside Skelly’s bag of improvised explosives, which he’d hidden for safekeeping, was part of the Cynda emergency kit: a rappelling gun with an automatic winder. He passed it to Hera.
He was about to close the bin when he glanced at his traveling pack—the one he’d carried with him when leaving Gorse. A thought occurred to him, and he unzipped it and felt around for something inside.
His lightsaber.
It was there, hidden innocuously inside the canvas carrying case for a blaster riflescope. Kanan hesitated for a moment before removing the case and strapping it to his left leg, opposite his holster. He wasn’t going to use it, of course, but unlike on Calcoraan Depot, the chances of the ship being searched were pretty good. He didn’t want anyone to find it.
He turned back to see Skelly watching him. For a moment, Kanan worried he would ask about the scope case—he had no rifle, after all—but he quickly realized Skelly was eyeing his bag of death.
“I’m not having you blow us all up,” Kanan said. He lifted Skelly’s bag. “This is coming with me for safekeeping.”
“You’ll blow yourself up just carrying that.” Skelly forced himself to stand. “It’s all right. Leave it. I’ll go with you.”
Kanan frowned. “You can barely walk!”
“So I can keep up the rear. Put that down and let’s go.”
Forager’s interior was one huge automated factory floor, Kanan discovered. The seven spheres that formed the body of the ship intersected in a row, producing a single atrium several stories high that stretched forward out of sight. Vats, centrifuges, conveyor belts, pneumatic tubes—it was a Denetrius Vidian production, if ever there was one.
Standing at a railing overlooking the area, Hera momentarily marveled at the sight. “It’s like someone crammed all of Moonglow’s refineries into a starship.”
“Hurry, so we can save the real one,” Kanan said. He could see the stormtroopers down on the main floor now, running toward them from the far end. Metal stairs led down to what would be more than a kilometer of hard fighting, nearly the length of a Star Destroyer.
“Can I … go back … and get my bombs?” Skelly said, panting at the railing. He’d fallen behind twice—and simply fallen once—on the way here from the landing bays.
Kanan shook his head and looked at Hera. She was staring up at the rafters. “What have you got?”
“Things are looking up,” she said, pointing. “There!”
Kanan squinted. Up top, a tramcar track suspended from the ceiling ran the length of the room between two banks of industrial lighting. Kanan’s eye traced back toward his location—and the rungs of a ladder attached to the wall behind them, fifteen meters high or more. The ladder was the only route to the tramcar: There was no way the rappelling gun could carry more than one at a time.
Hera had the idea; Kanan made the plan. It was how things were working out between them. Kana
n sent Hera up the ladder first, having her stop at intervals to turn and provide cover fire, if necessary, against any arriving Imperials. Then he sent up Zaluna, who went without complaint. Heights were apparently one more thing Zaluna wasn’t afraid of.
Skelly was his problem. He’d figured the guy had to go up ahead of him or he’d never go at all, but it was making their progress impossibly slow. Skelly was in pain—and reluctant to use his right hand for a grip.
“Go on, Skelly!” Kanan yelled, after the third time he tuckered out.
Skelly dangled precariously, his right arm looped around a rung. “Just give me a—”
Skelly never finished his statement. Blasterfire peppered the wall around him, causing him to lose hold. Kanan grasped vainly at the man as he fell past, flailing. “Skelly!”
The man fell outward, his body slamming against the railing of the balcony they’d been standing on earlier. Limply, Skelly fell over the side and out of sight—presumably toward the factory floor. High above, Hera opened fire on Skelly’s attackers.
Hanging partway off the ladder, Kanan craned his neck to see any sign of Skelly. He couldn’t see anything—and now, more shooters were moving into the area. Hera called down from above. “Kanan, come on!”
Kanan scrambled up the ladder, narrowly escaping being shot several times in the process. Reaching the apex, he stepped out onto the short metal landing next to the parked tramcar. Hera was in it already, hanging over the front and looking down. “No sign of Skelly,” she said. She looked back, her face fraught. “I don’t think he could have survived that!”
“Nothing to do,” Kanan said, piling into the tramcar with the others. “We’ll look when we come back—if we come back. Let’s move!”
Once activated by Hera, the tramcar rattled along across hundreds of meters. It rode on a single rail—probably electrified, Kanan thought—attached to the ceiling by metal framing.
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