Under A Black Sun Trilogy

by Kevin J. Anderson

  killer said with a chuckle. "Save us some energy in our blaster

  packs.

  " "Not again," Jacen said with a groan. Lowie snarled. Tenel Ka

  reached for her lightsaber.

  "Don't make us shoot you down right where you stand," said one of the

  Wing Guards. "That would leave us with quite a mess to clean up."

  Thinking quickly, Lowbacca swept out with one ginger-furred arm and

  knocked Jacen into the nearest cloud car. He roared and pointed for

  Tenel Ka to leap into the scarlet vessel beside Jacen, while the

  Wookiee scrambled into the blue cloud car.

  "Duck!" Jacen called, squirming to right himself inside the cramped

  pile;t seat. Tenel Ka bent down and fired up the engines as she

  wriggled into her own seat beside him. Lowie roared his blue vehicle

  into motion while the surprised security men cried out and rushed into

  the room after them.

  Blaster bolts rang out, one sizzling and ricocheting off the scarlet

  paint near Jacen's head. He fumbled with the cloud-car controls and

  adjusted the dials to their maximum output.

  "Punch it, Lowie!" he called to his Wookiee friend as the four killers

  ran toward them, howling and firing indiscriminately.

  With a lurch, Jacen's cloud car blasted out into the open sky and spun

  in a full circle. He and Tenel Ka nearly tumbled out of their seats,

  but they managed to bring the car under control and fasten their crash

  restraints in time.

  With a bestial roar, Lowie careened out of the hangar bay in the second

  cloud car, a blue streak across the sky. Jacen wrestled with the

  controls and soared onward at full speed. He breathed a great sigh of

  relief.

  "I guess they didn't count on our alternatives," Jacen said.

  Tenel Ka twisted around to look behind her at the gleaming white

  metropolis in the clouds. "It does not appear that we are safe just

  yet, Jacen, my friend," she said.

  Not far behind them, they could see that the thugs had helped

  themselves to a pair of cloud cars, newer and brighter than the ones

  the young Jedi Knights had found. The killers raced after them in hot

  pursuit.

  Surrounded by the clutter of girders and construction debris, Jaina

  gripped her extinguished lightsaber, wishing she dared turn it on again

  to light their way. But for now the tangled darkness offered them

  places to hide from the turncoat security guards who still hunted the

  four companions in the abandoned amusement park site. Overhead,

  however, chameleon creatures scrambled along catwalks and crossbeams,

  keeping an eye on them as they fled.

  Luckily, the chameleon creatures carried neither blaster pistols nor

  stunners. Instead, they brandished wicked-looking transparent knives

  with blades fashioned from crystal shards.

  Since the creatures were nearly invisible, Jaina had a difficult time

  counting the camouflaged enemies, but she caught glimpses of the smooth

  forms as colors and shadows shifted across their bodies. Their cruel

  lipless mouths grinned as they approached their prey.

  "Oh, why didn't I carry my own hold-out blaster?" Lando muttered.

  "Ever since I became respectable, I stopped packing weapons."

  Zekk commiserated with him. "Right now I wish I had a lightsaber, too

  ... even my old one from the Shadow Academy."

  "We'll just play hide-and-seek as long as we can." Anja seemed more

  angry than afraid at the prospect of the creatures' attack.

  Jaina gritted her teeth as they hurried along. "Looks like we women'll

  have to defend you men."

  "We'll do our best to help out," Zekk said, flashing her a grim

  smile.

  "Somehow or other."

  The pack of chameleon assassins made soft thumping sounds as they

  swarmed along the girders above. Lando and his three companions dashed

  under the twisted superstructure of the enormous looping

  hovercoaster.

  it was the most massive part of the amusement park; the heavy beams and

  bent durasteel framework loomed high above them like a fossilized

  prehistoric creature.

  "We can't hide under here," Anja said, ducking as a brilliant bolt

  zinged past her face. She fired up her acid-yellow blade.

  "I don't know where else to go," Lando replied. More blaster fire rang

  out from the shadows as security guards marched into the enclosed

  space, targeting Anja's bright lightsaber now. "If you have any

  suggestions, I'm all ears."

  Jaina gazed up at the chameleon creatures slinking along the

  hovercoaster above them. Their sharp crystal blades twinkled,

  reflecting the dim emergency lights. Skins rippled and flickered,

  adjusting their camouflage, as the creatures gathered their forces

  overhead. Although viciously armed, the chameleons seemed to be

  relative cowards, unwilling to attack until they had massed for a

  single strike.

  Jaina intended to use that to her advantage. "Everybody stand back,"

  she said. "And dive for cover." She stood up, switched on her blazing

  violet lightsaber, and held it high.

  "Wait!" Lando called. "What are you going to-" The Wing Guards

  shouted and ran toward them.

  "What are you waiting for?" Zekk said. Jaina slashed sideways.

  Her dazzling lightsaber blade sliced through the main pillar that

  supported the central section of the hovercoaster. The energy-blade

  severed the heavy durasteel brace as easily as if it were a hot knife

  slicing through Ithorian sap gelatin. She stood back to look at the

  smoking, sizzling ends of the huge support beam. As if in slow motion,

  she saw the metal begin to slide. The hovercoaster tilted.

  "Look out!" she cried, and dove for a pile of heavy crates.

  Anja and Zekk had already scrambled backward. Lando stared in

  horror.

  "My hovercoaster!" he clustered chameleon creatures skittered about,

  scrambling for balance. Suddenly the entire framework toppled beneath

  them, groaning, bending, twisting.

  Jaina looked up, shielding her eyes against any debris that might fall

  in their direction. The smooth-skinned creatures tumbled downward,

  shaken loose from their precarious perches. Their skin color shifted

  as they tried to match the color of the air through which they fell.

  Girders groaned and crumpled. With a resounding crash, the central

  section of the hovercoaster slammed down onto the deckplates.

  "That's just great," Lando said, astounded. "Now I'm even more behind

  schedule."

  Showing no consideration whatsoever in response to his financial

  plight, the traitorous Cloud City security troops opened fire again,

  running toward the scene of the crash.

  "We've got them now," bellowed one deep voice.

  As Lowbacca roared across the sky in his commandeered blue cloud car,

  he hooked sharply off to the left, intentionally veering far away from

  Jacen and Tenel Ka. Separating and causing their pursuers to split up

  seemed their best chance of escape.

  "Master Lowbacca, what do you think you're doing?" Em Teedee said

  shrilly.

  Lowie jerked the controls and accelerated even more, spinning around in

 
a sideways loop as the pursuing hit men fired their weapons.

  The bolts sizzled through the air, and Lowie's sensitive nose could

  smell the ionization drifting up, a taint of ozone and other burned

  gases from Bespin's atmosphere. The blue cloud car lurched from one

  side to another, letting the bolts pass harmlessly beneath the hull.

  "You realize, of course, that you're not licensed to pilot this craft,"

  Em Teedee continued. "You have no training. We're all doomed!"

  Lowie barked a warning.

  "How do you expect me to be quiet? This is an emergency!" the little

  droid wailed, but when Lowie growled that every small distraction would

  increase their likelihood of crashing, Em Teedee promptly fell silent

  and blinked his optical sensors with internal misery.

  As Lowie soared along, though, his sensitive ears detected a flutter in

  the cloud car's engine. The craft may well have been unused for months

  or even years, and it was severely out of tune. With one glance he

  confirmed that he had very little fuel as well.

  He looked behind at the single predatory craft that still followed.

  Inside it, the slime-dripping alien and one Wing Guard pushed closer,

  firing their weapons. Unfortunately, their vehicle did not appear to

  have the least bit of engine trouble.

  Lowie ducked and looped, then finally spun around and headed back

  toward Cloud City. Maybe someone would see the dogfight. Maybe he

  could get some help there.... Of course, since some important members

  of Cloud City's own infrastructure were out to kill the young Jedi

  Knights, he wasn't sure he could trust any offer of assistance.

  In the clouds and rising tendrils of mists he saw no place to hide.

  Lowie's cloud-car engine popped and sputtered again. He wrestled for

  control as the vehicle suddenly began losing altitude. The engine

  picked up again and he climbed ... but during the brief interval he had

  lost most of his lead. His pursuers came right behind him. The roar

  of their engines filled his ears.

  He ducked his head as a blast streaked directly above him, so close

  that it singed his ginger fur. Lowie did what he could, accelerating,

  punching all the controls in an attempt to find some kind of emergency

  override. Then, with a disheartening pop, the hum of the turbines

  dropped to a lower pitch. The engines barely managed to keep the cloud

  car moving along. Lowie growled in despair.

  Suddenly the hunters were right beside him.

  Lowie searched for some kind of weapon, but the vehicle he had

  commandeered was no more than a pleasure craft, a skyskimmer used for

  racing among the clouds-and even as a racer, this cloud car wasn't much

  good. He hoped he had at least bought enough time for Jacen and Tenel

  Ka to escape in their own cloud car.

  Beside him, the slimy assassin and the treacherous guard leveled their

  handheld blasters at Lowie. He knew that they had no intention of

  letting him survive.

  With his cloud car failing and unable to outrun them, with no other

  weapon, Lowie let loose a huge Wookiee roar at them. He flashed his

  fangs and snarled loudly enough that even his uncle Chewbacca would

  have been proud.

  Just then, shadows passed overhead. Great wings flapped as creatures

  swooped and ducked. The slime-dripping alien looked up and

  instinctively fired his blaster, though the bolt went wide. Within

  moments, seven great thrantas circled the pursuing cloud car, sweeping

  down.

  The painted riders on the thrantas called to each other in a strange

  high-pitched language, shouting orders to set up a routine, as if it

  were mere practice for their sky rodeo. The thrantas flitted under the

  pursuing cloud car now. One of the flying creatures bumped against it,

  sending it into a spin.

  The Wing Guard pilot cried out while the slime-dripping alien waved his

  blaster pistol, but the riders were much too fast for them.

  They continued their sky ballet, swirling, looping. Finally, one

  thranta swooped down just above the pursuing vehicle, so that its rider

  could drop a slender lasso artfully around the pilot's chest and

  amns.

  Cinching the noose tight, the rider yanked the pilot up out of his seat

  in the cloud car.

  He kicked and struggled, thrashing his head from side to side, but his

  arms were pinned to his ribs. His weapon dropped from his gloved hand

  and fell tumbling far down into the soup of clouds below.

  The slimy alien assassin, now the only occupant of the cloud car,

  looked around wildly, trying to avert the flying creatures' attack. He

  wrestled to keep the vehicle under control, but as he reached toward

  the navigation console, another cloud rider skimmed by, close enough to

  lasso him around the shoulders of his slime-stained uniform. The alien

  clawed at the rope and pulled himself free just as the thranta rider

  jerked him out of the cloud car. Still dripping slime, he tumbled over

  the side of the vehicle to fall, screaming and flailing his anus.

  Then two thrantas dove even faster than Bespin's gravity could pull the

  would-be assassin downward. The thranta riders snatched the alien in

  midair, looped a rope around him, and tossed him onto the back -I one

  of their thrantas. When the alien began to struggle, the cloud rider

  grinned and easily tossed the slimy captive off his thranta, so that

  his partner could spin around to catch him on the second thranta's

  smooth back.

  The second thranta now flapped up to join the cluster of other sky

  performers and the entire troupe made a show of tossing their two

  helpless captives from one thranta to another as if they were balls in

  a juggling contest.

  Unpiloted now, the pursuing cloud car spun out of control, its rudder

  sending it into a dive until the craft zoomed at full speed down into

  the deep layers of impenetrable clouds.

  Lowie brought his own puttering vehicle closer to Cloud City. Under

  the watchful eye of the thranta rider, he used every trick he could

  think of to increase his altitude and keep the cloud car afloat.

  Finally he reached an open-rigged set of free-form hover-scaffolding

  that clung to the underside of Cloud City's hull.

  As he brought the craft in, the thranta riders flew off with their

  captives. Lowie wondered what the colorful aliens would do with them

  when they returned to their berths on Cloud City.

  "Ah, it is a fine thing to have friends in high places," Em Teedee

  said.

  Lowie barked his agreement. He held on tightly as the cloud car bumped

  and skidded onto an open platform on the hover-scaffolding.

  Sparks flew from scraped metal. Although the engine had completely

  died, he managed to spin the craft around so that it came to a rest

  with a loud thump on the unoccupied ledge right near an emergency exit

  into Cloud City.

  Groaning, the Wookiee turned to look at the vast sky behind him, thick

  with bulging clouds. He saw no sign whatsoever of Jacen or Tenel Ka.

  Running deeper into the maze of the amusement park, leaving the

  hovercoaster wreckage behind them, Lando cast
about for inspiration.

  He looked with fresh eyes at the shadowy attractions, the stations that

  he hoped would one day be rides and entertainment stands enjoyed by

  millions of beings young and old.

  Lando stopped as an idea occurred to him. "Wait a minute! We've got

  an advantage that I'm willing to bet these guards don't have."

  "I'll be glad to hear it," Anja growled.

  Lando smiled. "I know this place. I know what it can do, and

  everything that's already functional." Jaina remembered from their

  initial tour what lay ahead, and she instantly understood what Lando

  intended.

  Zekk's emerald eyes gleamed; he saw it, too. "Then let's show them a

  few of the attractions."

  The Wing Guards approached from separate sides, trying to box them

  in.

  When their victims dashed forward, the guards shouted and opened fire

  again, running at full tilt. Jaina intentionally slowed down just

  enough to give them an enticement. Closer now ... closer ...

  Suddenly she and Lando ducked left as they passed a triggering

  sensor.

  Zekk yanked Anja along behind him.

  Huge slavering monsters leaped out of nothingness, the most hideous

  creatures that holographic artists could devise. The monsters lunged

  with inhuman roars and howls.