“It was you,” Odai spluttered. “You were in on it!”
Shalla rolled her eyes. “This is taking too long.”
She twisted again, zapping the second droid. Vizago took his chance. He reached for Vilmarh’s Revenge. But before he could even slip the blaster from its holster, Shalla had swung her bow toward him and fired.
Vizago screamed as he was thrown back, Vilmarh’s Revenge skidding across the floor. His hand shot up to his left horn. The tip was missing! The woman had blown it clean off!
Now Shalla was pointing her bow at Odai. The Mon Calamari was showing his true colors. He sniveled behind the front desk like the cowardly bully he was.
“Don’t shoot,” he begged. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, just don’t shoot.”
“That’s better.” Shalla smiled cruelly. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time. Who took the children?”
“You know him?” Ephraim spluttered. “You know the Shade?”
“Not him,” Milo said. “Her. Captain Shalla Mondatha. She’s running some kind of café down at the landing strip.”
“A café?” Ephraim said skeptically.
“It must be a cover,” Lina said.
Ephraim rubbed his hand against his beard. “And a good one, too. What better way to get people talking than by feeding them? There’s no such thing as a free lunch, after all.”
Lina looked down at her jumpsuit. “That’s why she had all the equipment for the heist. She said it was because she used to be a smuggler.”
“But she’s really a bounty hunter,” said Milo. “Sent to find us!”
“But why not just grab you when she had the chance?” Ephraim mused. “Why go through with the robbery?”
“Because it’s not us she wants,” Milo said.
“The data in Crater’s head!” Lina said. “That’s why she was helping us. Oh, we’re so stupid!”
She thrust her hand into a pocket, pulling out the visor she’d borrowed from Milo in the sewer.
“This thing can transmit,” Lina said. “That’s how she sent us the picture of the keypad.”
“What if it can track as well?” Milo asked.
Ephraim took the visor from her, examining it closely. He sighed. “You’re right. There’s a tracker built in.”
“Then she knows we’re here!” Milo exclaimed.
Ephraim shook his head. “Not necessarily.” He looked around the small room. “This place is shielded.”
“To protect your messages?” Lina guessed. Ephraim nodded.
“That’s the idea. Our signal is bounced around the local datanet before being broadcast, rather than transmitting direct from our home.”
“So the Empire can’t trace the transmission back to the source,” Lina said, completing Ephraim’s explanation. “Clever.”
“And your shield will disrupt the Shade’s tracker?” Milo asked.
Ephraim didn’t look so sure. “For now at least. It’s not perfect though. The longer you stay here…”
“The more likely it is that she’ll find us.”
Lina sighed. “Then we need to go.”
“I didn’t say that,” Ephraim insisted.
“No,” Lina argued. “But it’s true. We can’t put you in danger because of us. What you’re doing is too important.”
“And you have Ezra, too,” Milo added.
Lina made a decision. “We need to get back to the Whisper Bird and take off as soon as possible.”
“As long as we have enough fuel,” Milo said. “Plus, if Shalla’s tracking the visor…”
“Then let her follow it,” Ephraim said, grabbing a tool from the table. As the children watched, he pressed it into the side of the glasses, a signal beeping on his transmitter. “Yes, I thought so.”
He adjusted a control on the transmitter and a holographic map of Capital City appeared in the air, a tiny dot flashing.
“Transmissions work two ways,” he explained. “That’s the Shade, looking for you. Now, if I take this visor over to the other side of town, she’ll come running. She’ll follow me, not you.”
“While we head back to the Whisper Bird,” Lina said. “But won’t that put you in the line of fire?”
“Don’t worry about Ephraim,” Mira called down from the top of the ladder. “He was a bit of a speed demon when he was younger. He can outrace anyone.”
Ephraim led them back up into the lounge. “I’m just sorry we can’t do more. Once you get away, we’ll start looking for your parents and be in touch.”
“You should take this, too,” Mira said, pushing a bag into Lina’s hands. “To buy more fuel. I’m just sorry it’s not more.”
Lina looked inside. It was full of credits. “We can’t take this.”
“You can, and you have to. Do you know the way back to the landing strip from here?”
Lina nodded as Milo grabbed CR-8R’s head. “I think so.”
“Then we need to go,” Ephraim said, nodding toward the door. “It’s dark out there, but the moons should give you enough light. You need to get off Lothal as soon as you can!”
Neither Lina nor Milo spoke as they ran along the Lothal streets. They tried to stay in the long shadows cast by the skyscrapers. The tall towers didn’t look so beautiful anymore.
They stopped with every transport that passed, darting into doorways and behind stalls. It was hard not to imagine Shalla jumping out of them at every turn.
No, not Shalla. The Shade. They didn’t even know if Shalla was her real name.
The Whisper Bird was waiting for them when they made it to the landing strip. The Moveable Feast was still next to it, but the Shade’s craft was closed. There was no light blazing through its portholes.
Clutching CR-8R’s head, Milo raced for the Bird, only stopping when he heard an excited cry. He turned to see Morq crouched below a nearby speeder bike.
“There you are,” Milo said, running to his pet. “I was scared she’d hurt you. Come on, we need to get on board the Bird.”
Morq didn’t move. He just sat there, quivering.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lina asked as she came up behind Milo. That was when she noticed the collar around Morq’s thin neck. It was connected to a chain tied around the speeder bike.
“I wondered if you’d come back for him,” came a voice from behind them. It was Shalla, standing beneath the nose of the Whisper Bird. She was still wearing her knitted shawl, but now it was covering black body armor instead of overalls.
“I suppose I don’t need this anymore,” she said, unfastening the shawl at her neck. “You don’t look very pleased to see me.”
“We know who you are!” Lina shouted back, standing next to her brother. “You’re a bounty hunter—the Shade!”
“Am I now?” Shalla asked, turning the shawl inside out. The other side of the fabric was dark and smooth, like a cloak. She draped it over her shoulders again, fixing the clasp beneath her chin.
“Where’s your mask?” Milo asked, trying to sound threatening. Lina wasn’t sure it had worked.
Shalla cocked her head. “I can put it on if you want. Maybe after you’ve given me that droid.”
“No,” Lina said, moving to stand in front of Milo. “We won’t.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Shalla smiled. “It was clever, ditching the visor. Whoever rescued you obviously still thinks I’m chasing it around town.”
“We found your signal,” Lina insisted.
“No, you found a tracker stuck to the back of a Wakizan beetle. As soon as I realized that Odai didn’t have you, I knew you’d come back for your ship. So I prepared a little welcome home surprise for you.” Shalla pulled out a gloved hand. She was holding her datapad. “Either you surrender, or I press this button.”
“And what will that do?” Milo asked.
“Oh, nothing much,” Shalla said. “Just detonate the thermo-grenade I’ve hidden on that speeder bike. You know, the one chained to your little pet!”
Milo turned to look at Morq, who was staring at them with wide, frightened eyes. “You can’t! He hasn’t done anything to you!”
“I can and I will,” Shalla insisted. “So what’s it going to be, Milo? Surrender or say bye-bye, Morq.”
Ephraim Bridger pulled up alongside the landing strip, killing his speeder bike’s engines. It had quickly become clear that the Shade wasn’t following him, so he had taken the fight to her, tracking her signal to an alleyway not far from Twin Horns Storage.
He’d eventually found the tracker stud on the back of a particularly nasty-looking insect. She’d tricked them.
But maybe the children had reached their ship before she’d found them. Maybe they’d gotten away. He would check the landing strip and then get back to Mira. There was only one problem. He had no idea what their ship looked like.
There was one he recognized though—the Moveable Feast.
The Shade’s ship.
A sudden movement caught his eye. Someone was walking from behind the birdlike ship next to the Feast.
His heart sank when he saw who it was.
Milo and Lina Graf were being led toward the Feast by a figure in a long cloak. Ephraim pulled out a pair of electrobinoculars and took a closer look. It was a woman, with CR-8R’s head tucked underneath her arm. He checked the Feast’s ramp, spotting a droid’s headless body already loaded on the ship.
He lowered the binoculars. Could he stop them before they took off?
It was doubtful. Even if he moved quickly, there was no guarantee that the Shade wouldn’t hurt the children. Besides, Ephraim was no fighter. He knew that.
But he had friends who were.
Grimly, he watched as the party marched up the ramp. It raised with the sound of hydraulic gears, and seconds later, the Feast’s engines roared. A cloud of dirt billowed from beneath the freighter as it rose into the air. A moment later, it swept overhead and blasted high into the sky.
Ephraim pulled a communicator from his tunic and opened a channel.
“Ryder, it’s me….Yes, I know you told me not to call you just yet, but this is important. We need to mount a rescue….”
TO BE CONTINUED IN
STAR WARS
ADVENTURES IN WILD SPACE
Book Four: THE DARKNESS
The Heist Page 6