[Last Of The Jedi] - 06(11)

And she was in the resistance.

Ferus followed her by the same method, leaping from roof to roof and occasionally, if there were good sight lines, from the walkway one level above. He was good at this. Skills he had learned as a Jedi had been honed as he worked in his own business, and later as a member of the resistance on Bellassa.

The woman entered a small cantina. Ferus waited a few minutes, then strolled inside. The woman sat at a table in the back. An older man had joined her. Ferus took a seat at the bar.

He considered his next move. The most direct was most likely best. He would just approach them.

He was about to get up when he felt something small and cold nudge him in the back.

“Yeah, it’s a blaster,” a deep voice said. “So don’t make a move. I’d like a word with you in the alley.”





Chapter Six


Trever had thought he could handle just about anything the galaxy could throw at him at this point, but he’d barely made it through the storm, and the ship was failing as it approached Samaria. He had the coordinates where Flame would be — thanks to a quick search of Toma’s private database — but he had about two more minutes before he lost his engines and crashed.

Maybe it hadn’t been the brightest idea to take off like that.

Well. At this point he had nothing to lose. He’d either be space dust. or he’d succeed in landing and finding Flame … and Ferus. Trever gritted his teeth and kept his hands on the sweat-slicked controls. The craft was a bit out of control now. His plan was to come in fast and hug the ground in the hopes of evading any Imperial tracking sensors. Technically, Trever was supposed to check in and land at the main landing platform in Sath, but rules made him itchy, and Imperials made him break out in hives.

When he hadn’t been worrying on the journey, he’d been checking out the nav database. The area he was supposed to land in lay outside Sath. Samaria had vast areas of wilderness, and the Crystal Forest was one of them. Although it was a popular destination for tourists and campers, much of it was still wild.

The Crystal Forest had formed millions of years before, when the planet was an ice planet. Crystals had formed cliffs and treelike shapes that towered hundreds of meters high. It was supposed to be an inspiring sight, but all Trever cared about was that it would provide good cover.

Suddenly, as Trever gripped the controls of the failing ship, he saw the area below. It looked like a red haze at first, but as he approached he was able to differentiate the gnarled massive forms in tones of rust and orange and gold that rose from the planet’s surface. It was oddly and eerily beautiful.

The ship shuddered and groaned, then heeled to starboard. Trever had to push the failing engines to avoid slamming into one of the towering shapes. Now he was in the thick of it, the ship with its screaming engines lurching and stalling as he desperately looked for somewhere to land.

This place had seemed so galactically cool from the relative safety of the atmosphere. But the treelike forms weren’t so cool when you were heading straight toward them. This place had its own weather system, too. Winds howled through the canyons created by the formations, slammed against the ship, and caused Trever to scream out loud when metal shrieked from the impact of a sharp crystal scraping along the side.

He had to bring the ship down. He had to do it or he would die.

Desperately searching now, Trever descended. One wing of the ship bashed into a crystal formation, arid more red lights suddenly blinked insistently on the control panel.

“Just hold on,” Trever muttered.

Coming up fast on his right, he saw a small clear space on the surface. He remembered a trick of Ferus’s. He cut the engines, turned hard right, crossed his fingers, let out a howl of desperation, and held on as the ship shuddered, creaked, and then dropped like a stone into the opening.

Trever felt his body fly up with the impact. His teeth slammed into his lower lip. He heard a horrible tearing noise and the ship made a quarter turn, then stopped. With a gasp, the engines died.

Trever, however, was still alive. He thought.

It took him several minutes to be able to move. His body shook from the effort it took. With trembling fingers he dabbed at the blood on his lip with the hem of his tunic.

“Get a grip. You’re safe.” He said the words out loud. He was embarrassed that he’d been in such a state of terror. He’d been through a lot in the past month or so with Ferus. He’d thought he was brave. He’d never realized how much of his bravery he had borrowed from Ferus.

He raised himself from the chair and looked around. The ship had basically collapsed around him. The cockpit was intact, but he could have trouble exiting if the ramp didn’t work.