Tash was calling on the Force.
“Please put the blaster down,” Hoole said. “I don’t want the children to get hurt. I promise I won’t cause you any problems.”
“Oh, I know you won’t,” the bounty hunter said
with
another jagged-toothed smile. “You’re worth almost as much dead as alive. And since I get the feeling you’d jump me first chance you got, I figure I’ll just shoot you now and save myself a load of trouble.”
With a snap of the wrist, the bounty hunter turned the blaster from Zak to Hoole. Zak felt the warm breeze turn into a blasting wind.
Just as the bounty hunter pulled the trigger, the arm holding the blaster jerked upward, and the blaster bolt sizzled over Hoole’s shoulder.
Before Zak could move a muscle, the Shi’ido had shapeshifted into the bulky, snout-nosed form of a Gamorrean and pummeled the bounty hunter into unconsciousness with a few powerful blows. By the time Zak had taken two steps, Hoole had shifted back into his own shape and was tucking the bounty hunter’s blaster into the folds of his robe.
“Tash,” the Shi’ido said calmly, “I assume you caused that shot to miss?”
Tash nodded. “Yes. I’m starting to get the hang of the Force, I think. I still can’t do much, but …”
Hoole nodded. “Your power is becoming most impressive.”
Tash shrugged. “You did the real work.”
Zak frowned, suddenly aware that he hadn’t done anything to help.
“We must get back to the Shroud,” Hoole said. “Nar Shaddaa is obviously not going to be as safe as we had hoped. In fact, if that bounty hunter is telling the truth, then Nar Shaddaa is one of the most dangerous places in the galaxy for us to be.”
“But every place is dangerous,” Zak said wearily. “Everywhere we’ve gone, the Empire has found us.”
It felt to him as though they’d been on the run forever. In fact, they’d only been with Uncle Hoole for a little over a year. Almost twelve standard months ago, the Empire had destroyed Tash and Zak’s home planet of Alderaan, killing their mother and father and all their friends in one terrible blow. Zak and Tash had survived only because they’d been offplanet at the time. Hoole, their uncle by marriage, was their only living relative. So they’d gone to live with him. And they’d hardly had a moment to catch their breath since.
“There’s got to be someplace safe we can go,” Tash said.
“No place I’ve ever heard of,” Zak grumbled. Hoole raised an eyebrow. “An interesting idea.”
“What do you mean?” asked Zak.
“A place that no one has ever heard of,” the Shi’ido said thoughtfully. “We should find a planet that has not been charted. That would be safe from the Empire.”
Zak shook his head. “But if it’s a planet no one’s ever charted, how are we going to find it?”
Hoole led them out of the alley. “There is a way. As you both know, my anthropology work has taken me to many different planets. Whenever an exploration party has discovered a new planet, they send data to our research facility on the planet Koaan. Sometimes, it takes months for this data to be studied. And since the Empire took over …”
Zak snorted. “I’ll bet since the Empire took over, things have slowed down even more.”
“Precisely,” Hoole said. “The data banks at the research facility are filled with planets that have been located but never studied or colonized.”
Tash’s eyes lit up. “You’re saying we could use the information stored on Koaan to find a planet that no one else has bothered to study, a planet that hasn’t made it onto the official charts.”
“Precisely,” Hoole said again. “We shall go to Koaan.”
They had been lucky to escape the first bounty hunter, and their luck held out as they hurried through the streets of Nar Shaddaa. If they did pass any other bounty hunters, the killers didn’t recognize them. The three fugitives reached the Shroud with no trouble.
A few minutes later they received clearance to depart, and the starship roared out of the atmosphere and into space.
“Once we reach Koaan,” Hoole said when they were all seated in the ship’s cockpit, “we must find Deevee. I am sure he will be able to help us.”
“Deevee!” Tash said with a laugh. “We haven’t seen that droid in ages!”
D-V9, or Deevee for short, had been Hoole’s servant droid, and had accompanied Hoole and the Arrandas on several of their adventures. However, after being severely damaged by stormtroopers on the planet Kiva, he had retired to a quieter life as a research assistant on Koaan.