by Alex Wheeler
Don't let 'em see you sweat, kid, he heard Han's voice in his head, and found himself wishing that the pilot was by his side.
Of course, if he were here, he'd never let me have the controls, Luke thought with a grin.
"You want to back out, now's the time." Jaxson's taunt came through the comlink loud and clear.
Luke didn't bother to respond. He just pushed the throttle, speeding toward the Needle. It was all about precision. Lining up the ship with the narrow opening. Coming in at exactly the right angle, at exactly the right speed. No room for error. Error meant smashing into the tower of rock at 1,200 kilometers an hour.
Focus.
Forget about Jaxson, about the navigational computer, about the risk of crash, the risk of death. Let the ship become an extension of himself. Let its wings become his wings, its gyrostabilizers as much a part of him as his arms and legs. Luke let the rest of the world fade away, until there were only two things left in his galaxy. The ship and the Needle.
Just a little faster, just a little farther, and—
"Blast it!" Luke shouted, as his instrument screens blazed red with alerts. Navigation failure, steering failure, engine failure…every system was going wonky. It had to be a false alarm, except—"Blast!" Luke cried again, as the ship bucked and shuddered beneath him. He veered sharply to the right, away from the Needle, just before its rocky jaws snapped off his central airfoil.
"Mayday!" Jaxson cried through the comlink, as his skyhopper made an erratic loop around the rocky spire. "Something's wrong with the ship, I think it's—" The comlink went dead, and out of the corner of his eye, Luke saw Jaxson's skyhopper make a steep dive, dropping toward the ground at a sharp angle and an alarming speed.
And then Luke's engine cut out. The skyhopper plunged downward. Luke pulled back hard, trying to catch an updraft. If he could glide for just a few more kilometers, he could come in shallowly enough to crash land rather than just crash. But the steering wouldn't respond. The alarms buzzed and blared as the skyhopper dropped out of the sky. Luke struggled to hold it horizontal.
This is it, he thought, as the ground rose up quickly. Time seemed to slow down, as it had back on Yavin 4, before the speeder exploded. But this time, it didn't matter. Luke couldn't just jump out; he'd modified his old T-16 for ejection capabilities, but that skyhopper was long gone. He had no choice but to go down with the ship.
The seconds dripped by, slow as melting dweezel taffy, and Luke had just enough time to admire the way the suns lit up the Stone Needle, lending the thin tower of rock a golden glow. It looks like a lightsaber, Luke marveled, wondering what would happen to his own, if he didn't make it.
And then the ground finally arrived, with a long scream of durasteel on desert rock.
Time's up.
There were only two pairs of electrobinoculars, so Leia had to share hers with Camie and Fixer. That was fine. She didn't have much interest in watching the race, and she certainly didn't need to see Luke thread the Needle. She'd seen him pull off more impressive stunts than that.
And more dangerous ones, she reminded herself, trying not to worry. She was furious at Luke for risking his life on something so stupid. After they'd come all this way to protect him. She wasn't about to encourage his foolishness by cheering him on.
But she was still curious. And every once in a while she grabbed a turn at the electrobinocs.
So she was the one peering through the lenses when Jaxson's ship dropped out of the sky, and a moment later, Luke's followed. There one minute, gone the next.
She was the one scanning the horizon for some sign of them, some movement.
She was the one who saw the ground spit up a cloud of fire.
But everyone saw the sky flare an angry red. And everyone saw the smoke.
Camie gasped. Someone put a hand on Leia's shoulder. She shook it off.
"He's fine," she said, aware that she sounded like a droid, flat and empty.
Fixer had grabbed the electrobinoculars and was peering intently at the crash site. "We've got to get out there," he said. "If they're going to have any chance at all."
"He's fine," Leia insisted again.
She felt numb.
Numbly, she piled into a rusted landspeeder with Windy, Deak, and the droids. Luke's droids. Fixer and Camie rode behind them. Numbly, she took the controls and steered toward the smoke. And numbly, she finally arrived at the crash site.
Two sites, really. Two scarred holes in the ground, strewn with smoldering wreckage. Twisted pieces of durasteel, broken shards of transparisteel. Smoke and fire. But no Jaxson. No Luke.
"Their bodies—" Fixer choked on the word. "A fire like that, it could have burned 'em up." Windy and Deak were identically pale, identically slack-jawed.
Leia shook her head and wiped a bead of sweat from her cheek. She gazed out at the desert. The sunburnt landscape was motionless. Nothing but kilometers of empty sand. Where are you, Luke? she thought. Where did you go?
"He's out there somewhere," she said.
"Where would they go?" Fixer asked skeptically. "And after a crash like that, how could they—"
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't have to. Leia understood: You saw the crash. You saw the explosion. How could they be in any shape to walk away?
"He's fine," she said. "If…if he wasn't, I would know."
"How?" Fixer challenged.
I don't know, she thought. But she allowed herself no doubts. Luke was alive. Somehow.
Somewhere.
CHAPTER TEN
Luke opened his eyes, squinting against the bright sun. He was lying on his side, his right cheek planted against the ground. The arid, empty landscape stretched to the horizon. The Stone Needle was nowhere to be seen. Nor was his skyhopper. There was nothing in sight but sand.
He remembered the crash.
Uncle Owen's going to kill me! he thought ruefully.
And then he remembered everything else.
This is not a good time for me to be piloting anything.
Luke tried to sit up, but something was stopping him. Binders, around his wrists, around his ankles. And around his chest and knees, thick cords binding him to another person. Luke craned his neck around as far as it would go.
"Jaxson!" he hissed. "Jaxson!" Louder this time. But the body attached to him didn't move.
Something else did.
"Awake already?" snarled the massive green creature hulking over him. Luke recognized the distinctive scaled face, clawed hands; and razor sharp jaws of a Trandoshan, a race of aggressive reptilian warriors. This one was taller than average, his scaly limbs bursting from a bright orange flight suit that had clearly been designed for a creature much smaller than him. Luke wondered what had happened to the suit's original owner. He suspected that the blast rifle slung around the Trandoshan's neck might have had something to do with it. The Trandoshan flicked his long tongue at Luke. "You've got a pretty hard head. For a human."
Luke struggled to move, but Jaxson's immobile body held him in place.
"You did something to our skyhoppers," Luke accused the Trandoshan.
Bossk widened his jaws in a smile. "The pulse generator wiped out every electrical system in a forty kilometer radius. Namely: yours."
"Why?" Luke said. "We're not your enemy. I don't even know who you are!"
"But I know who you are," the Trandoshan said. "Luke Skywalker. Friend to that galactic scourge Han Solo. And he's got plenty of enemies." The Trandoshan straightened up, smoothing out his flight suit. "I'm surprised none of them came to me sooner. You want a job done right, Bossk is the one to do it."
He was a bounty hunter, Luke realized. Which meant there was no point in trying to talk him out of it. Hunters were notoriously merciless and single-minded when it came to pursuing their bounty. But there was no reason Jaxson had to pay.
If he could only reach his lightsaber…
That was a useless wish. The Trandoshan, perhaps not realizing it was a weapon, had left the lightsab
er where it was, hanging from a low belt around Luke's hips. But his hands and arms were bound tightly behind his back. Much as he strained, the lightsaber was out of reach.
"Who hired you?" Luke asked, hoping to learn something that would help him.
The Trandoshan offered only an icy smile. "You'll find out soon enough. Though you'll wish you hadn't."
"At least let my friend go," Luke said. "He's got nothing to do with this. He's never even met Han."
"This worm?" Bossk asked. "Head softer than yours, it seems. He might already be dead. And if he's not, he will be soon."
"He's done nothing!"
"The Scorekeeper rewards triumph, not mercy," Bossk said. "You expect me to sacrifice my jagganath points for your soft-headed human?"
Luke groaned. He'd heard all about the Trandoshans from Han, who bore a heavy grudge against the race of notorious Wookiee-hunters. Trandoshans believed they would be greeted after their death by an all-powerful Scorekeeper who would tally up the number of points they'd achieved and offer them a divine reward.
They accrued points by killing.
"Our friends will come after us," Luke threatened him.
Bossk's lips widened, revealing his jagged teeth. He spit out a harsh, rasping noise, his tongue flickering. The laugh of a lizard. "Your friends think you're dead," he said. "A few fragmentation grenades saw to that."
"They'll come for me," Luke said steadily.
Bossk shrugged. "Night's coming," he said. "That'll make a nice dream." Then, without warning, his clawed foot shot out and caught Luke in the stomach, hard enough to send him and Jaxson rolling a few meters through the sand.
As the twin suns dipped beneath the horizon, Bossk dragged Luke and Jaxson into a shallow cave, then lay down across its entrance. Luke realized even the burly Trandoshan wasn't nuts enough to travel through the Jundland Wastes at night. They would pass the dark hours in the relative safety of the cave and start out again in the morning.
Which meant Luke had until morning to figure out how to escape.
"Is he asleep?" Jaxson whispered just as Bossk's eyes fluttered shut. His scaly arms were wrapped tight around his blast rifle. Bands strapped around each leg were packed with flare pistol cartridges.
"You're alive!" Luke whispered back, deeply relieved.
"Of course." Jaxson sounded annoyed. "So how are we getting out of here?"
They were tied back to back, lying with Luke facing Bossk, and Jaxson facing the back of the cave. "If I could just get out of these," Jaxson mumbled, straining to escape from the restraints. But after a few minutes of struggling, he gave up. "No use," he muttered. "Looks like we're lizard food."
"Maybe not," Luke whispered. He couldn't reach his lightsaber. But maybe Jaxson could. "Can you reach around to my utility belt? On the right side?"
Jaxson wriggled in the restraints, fingers stretching toward the hilt of the lightsaber. "Almost—" he said, frustrated. "Can't—got it!"
Jaxson slipped the hilt out of Luke's belt. Luke twisted his hands toward Jaxson's and fumblingly groped for the lightsaber.
"Is it some kind of knife or something?" Jaxson asked.
Luke didn't answer him. The lightsaber was back in his hands. Now he just had to figure out what to do with it.
Activating the glowing beam with his hands tied behind his back would have been risky enough. But with Jaxson tethered to him, the risk doubled. If he sliced blindly, he could easily cut off one of their limbs.
But they had no choice.
Luke had done his best with the training exercises Obi‑Wan had taught him. He'd spent hours in the forest, a blindfold across his eyes, using the lightsaber to deflect sting bursts he couldn't see. And every once in a while, he felt it, that mysterious connection to the Force. Every once in a while, the Force would guide his motions, and he would strike smoothly and surely, even with his eyes closed.
But that was practice.
"Don't move," he whispered.
"What do you mean?" Jaxson sputtered. "What are you going to do?"
Luke closed his eyes. He let the Force fill him. Then, in one swift motion, he activated the lightsaber and swiped it sharply to the right.
Jaxson rolled away, the cord binding him to Luke sliced neatly in two.
Another sharp twist of the glowing blade, and Luke's wrists were free. It took only moments to free his ankles, and then he turned to Jaxson.
Jaxson's eyes were bulging. He shrank away as Luke came at him with the lightsaber, but allowed Luke to cut through his binders. "Where'd you get that?" he asked, reaching for it. Luke pulled the lightsaber out of his reach. He deactivated the Jedi weapon and slipped it back into his belt.
"Let's just get out of here," he whispered.
There was just one thing standing in their way. Or, more accurately, sleeping in their way. Bossk's scaly body lay across the opening of the cave.
"Just slice him open with that thing," Jaxson hissed. "He'll never see it coming."
Luke shook his head. He couldn't kill the bounty hunter in his sleep, no matter what the creature had done to them.
But he also couldn't beat the Trandoshan in a fair fight. Maybe a Jedi like Obi‑Wan could have used the lightsaber to fend off a giant lizard and his blast rifle, but Luke knew he wouldn't have a chance.
Which left them with very few options.
"Well?" Jaxson looked almost ready to snatch the lightsaber and do the job himself.
Luke gazed at the airspeeder anchored just outside the cave. Then looked down again at the sleeping bounty hunter. "I think I have a plan."
Luke held his breath as Jaxson tiptoed over the slumbering Trandoshan.
Jaxson was right: it wasn't much of a plan, but it was all they had. As Jaxson crept toward the airspeeder, Luke stayed in the cave, his lightsaber activated. Its glowing blue tip hovered centimeters from Bossk's throat. If the bounty hunter was truly sleeping, Luke would wait for Jaxson to make it safely to the airspeeder, then dash after him.
But if Bossk was awake, lying in wait for his prey to make an escape attempt, then Luke would be there to stop him.
As Jaxson was halfway to the airspeeder, the Trandoshan's reptilian eye popped open. His clawed hand closed around the rifle.
"Don't," Luke said, holding his blade steady.
The bounty hunter laughed. "You think you can save yourself with a child's toy?" He swiped his arm toward the lightsaber, intending to knock it out of the way.
The blade cut cleanly through his limb. It dropped to the ground with a dull thud.
Luke stared in horror at the severed arm. Bossk didn't even flinch. He jumped to his feet, hissing with anger, and raised the blast rifle. Without thinking, Luke slashed at the rifle with his lightsaber, and the long barrel clattered to the ground. Enraged, the Trandoshan lunged for Luke. He danced out of the way, waving the lightsaber nearly at random to ward off the attack. Over Bossk's shoulder, he saw Jaxson racing back toward the cave—unarmed, yet determined to help.
"Go!" Luke shouted. "I can handle this!"
"Foolish last words, human," Bossk taunted, whipping out an archaic double-bladed sword. Luke had never seen one in person before—it looked ancient. Bossk brought the blade down over Luke's head. Instinctively, Luke raised the lightsaber to protect himself. The sword broke in half.
The look on Bossk's face would have been comical—if it hadn't been so terrifying.
The Trandoshan smashed a clawed fist into Luke's face. Luke went sprawling backward, but a moment later, he was on his feet again, hacking and slashing with the lightsaber. Bossk lunged for Luke, lashing out with his claws, but Luke dodged the blows. The glowing blade swept through the air, dancing around the Trandoshan. Luke wasn't thinking, wasn't aiming or strategizing, he just struck again and again, struggling and failing to land a blow. With a roar, Bossk hurtled toward him, wrapping his remaining hand around Luke's throat. Gasping for air, Luke slashed blindly with the lightsaber.
And then Bossk was on the ground. His left leg l
ay a meter away.
Luke gaped at his lightsaber, almost tempted to drop the deadly weapon on the ground, next to the writhing Trandoshan. It was almost like the lightsaber had taken over, fighting for itself.
And yet it had never felt so much a part of him.
"What are you waiting for, Skywalker!" Jaxson shouted, taking off toward the airspeeder. "Let's get out of here!"
Luke didn't need an invitation. He turned his back on Bossk and began to run. So he didn't see the wounded bounty hunter lob the fragmentation grenade with his one good hand. But Luke did see the deadly silver globe soar over their heads and land, with perfect aim, in the front seat of the airspeeder. "Down!" Luke shouted, grabbing Jaxson and throwing him to the ground, as the airspeeder exploded.
When the smoke cleared, Bossk was laughing. "Now we die together." He coughed, then spit out a gunky wad of viscous green blood. "Like I said—I always get the job done."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Han never felt quite right without his ship. The Millennium Falcon was docked in a shabby little hangar on Siskeen, where P'laang Ri, a Zabrak who owed Han more than a few favors, would look after it. The ship would be safe until Han returned, and the shuttle he'd borrowed was perfectly adequate. A scavenged Zeta-class Imperial shuttle, it was equipped with two double laser cannons and two double blaster cannons, along with a third, retractable rear-mounted double blaster cannon, just to discourage anyone who might want to follow. Not that they would need any of that, if everything went as planned, but it always helped to be prepared. Still, Han missed his ship. Right now, he especially missed the size of his ship.
The shuttle was large enough for two humans and a Wookiee to fit—but only if they pressed together, shoulder to shoulder. And, thanks to a burst hydraulics conduit at the beginning of their voyage, the whole cabin smelled like wet Wookiee fur. "Watch it, you dripping fuzzball!" Han complained, knocking Chewbacca's hairy arm out of his face for the hundredth time. He brought the shuttle into range of the Zoma satellite station and flicked on the comlink. Now they would either secure permission to board the station—or get blown out of the sky.