[Last Of The Jedi] - 04(17)

“About time you showed up.” Clive was beside him now.

“Blasters.” Ferus said the word not as a need but a warning.

“Wha -“

Ferus had felt the surge in the Force, warning him. He shoved Clive down as the blaster fire exploded overhead. It hit a stamping machine, sending molten fire through it.

“We’ve been spotted,” Ferus said.

“You think?”

They raced up the ramp, zigzagging to avoid the fire from the guards behind them. Stormtroopers appeared and thundered up the ramp. Clive used an old trick, tossing the handful of gears down the ramp. The stormtroopers slipped and fell. With a Force-push, Ferus gave them an extra boost, sending them flying back onto the factory floor.

Clive gave him a surprised look but there was no time for questions. Clive hurled the spoon, end over end over end, toward the sole Imperial officer. It hit him straight in the center of the forehead with such force that the officer’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in a heap. Ferus quickly closed the bay doors.

“Cockpit,” Clive said. “They’ll be coming after us with the big guns now.”

“Those weren’t the big guns?”

They raced to the cockpit and barreled through the door. Two freighter pilots stood up from where they’d been lounging with one eye on the nav computer panel. They saw the blaster in Ferus’s hand and the determined look in Clive’s eyes.

They held up their hands. “I didn’t sign on for this,” one said.

“Me either,” said the other.

“The door’s that way,” Clive said. He hit the cockpit ramp button with his fist.

They catapulted themselves out, jumping off the ramp before it hit the floor. Clive hit the ramp control again as Ferus fired up the engines.

The freighter ship shot into the sky. The prison became a gray blur in the middle of a jungle.

And then the first starfighters began to rise from the landing platform below.

“Do they have to be so stinking fast?” Clive muttered.

“What’s the status on our weapons system?” Ferus asked, pushing the speed.

Clive reviewed the computer readouts. “Uh, not great. We’ve got a couple of low-power laser cannons.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Ferus gave a quick glance at the nav computer. The Imperial starfighters were gaining. The freighter was old and slow. Its weapons were rudimentary. They could play hide-and-seek, but there were no asteroids in the vicinity, and anyway it would be like hiding a Wookiee behind a twig.

“We didn’t come this far to be turned into space dust,” Clive said fiercely.

But they both looked out at the ships and knew they were doomed.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Trever and the others had kept in touch at first, but as the planet Dontamo drew closer they maintained comm silence. Even if they scrambled communications, they didn’t want Imperial scouts to pick up anything.

Dex had pulled in a major favor and outfitted them with two small starships. They had seen service in the Clone Wars and their hulls were battered and pockmarked with the ghosts of small asteroid collisions and missile fire. But the engines were tweaked and their hyperdrives had been overhauled.

Trever, Keets, and Solace were in one modified ARC-170 starfighter, Oryon and Curran in an overhauled Jedi starfighter. Their plan was not much of a plan, in Trever’s opinion, but they didn’t have a choice. They simply had to land and see what they found. There was no time to obtain the prison specs, no time for surveillance. If an execution order had been issued, the small group of combatants had to move as fast as they could and take their chances.

Trever kept his eyes on the nav computer. He was alert for any signs of Imperial patrol ships. Oryon had told him that they often did routine inspections of the airspace surrounding the prison worlds. Every nerve inside him was screaming to land and find Ferus.

Suddenly he sat forward. “Something’s going on. Look.” He pointed to the dots on the computer. “A ship is being chased.”

“A freighter, by the looks of it.” Solace keyed in a few strokes. “And those are starfighters.”

“Imperial starfighters chasing an old freighter? Why?”

“Not our problem. Could be good news for us,” Solace said. “They’ll be distracted by whatever’s going on, and we can -“

She stopped abruptly.

“What is it?” Solace’s face had suddenly gone still and tight, a look Trever was becoming familiar with.

“The Force. Something …” She stared hard at the screen. “Ferus is on that ship.” She reached for the comm unit. “Oryon, come in. The ship on XYZ coordinates 1138, 1999, 2300 -“