Ferus hit a hard right and hovered over a landing platform twenty stories up, monitoring the last of the silver speeder’s descent. Someone tumbled out and the speeder zoomed off while the thief disappeared belowground into some sort of parking facility. Ferus parked his own vehicle and leaped out in one smooth movement, then Force-jumped twenty stories to the courtyard below.
He couldn’t tell if the thief was a man or woman; he just knew whoever it was was slight and could run fast. He’d barely gotten a glimpse before the thief disappeared into the parking hangar.
He heard running footsteps on the permacrete and took off, snaking through parked speeders, ready to activate his lightsaber. He leaped over one speeder, and blasterfire streaked toward him. He lifted his lightsaber to deflect it back but stopped.
“Ferus! Don’t!”
In a split second of incredible timing, Ferus managed to halt his movement and somersault away from the energy blasts. He leaped over the last speeder and onto the ground.
“Trever?”
Trever slowly rose, his head peeking over a cockpit canopy. “You know, you’re pretty good with that thing. A guy could get killed.”
“What are you doing?” Ferus asked furiously. His hands were shaking. He had come close to deflecting fire back at Trever. He pushed the image of the boy lying on the ground, lifeless, out of his mind. Acknowledge the mistake, and move on.
Or, as Siri used to say, There’s always time to kick yourself later.
He sprang forward and yanked on Trever’s arm, pulling him into the relative safety of the shadows near the great pillars that held up the roof of the hangar.
“I’m helping the resistance,” Trever said, shaking off Ferus’s hand.
“I don’t think so. Who was driving that speeder?”
“Flame. Torna was in contact with her.”
“Who’s Flame?” Ferus grabbed the droid. “Actually, I don’t have time for this now I have to get this back to Bog.”
“You’re going to take it back? Do you have any idea how hard it was to get it?”
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Helping you.”
“I’ve got news for you.” Ferus tucked the droid under his arm. “You’re not helping.”
“Watch out!” Suddenly, Trever slammed into Ferus, sending him flying. At the same time, Ferus saw the droids darting through the air, straight for him.
Chapter Fourteen
Ferus pushed Trever under a heavy speeder and whirled up, clutching Bog’s droid in one hand and his lightsaber in the other. The droids followed.
Why him and not Trever? He’d assumed they’d locked on Trever earlier. Their beaming accuracy had been aimed at the fleeing speeder. He’d been sure that they’d hit several times…
Wait a second.
Ferus backed up, leaping up on the roof of a speeder. Red beams of blaster energy shot out toward him. Instead of deflecting them, he stood motionless.
“Ferus!” Trever screamed.
The beams passed over him harmlessly. Just as he’d suspected.
Ferus put Bog’s droid on the top of the speeder and jumped down. The droids circled and came back. This time when they approached, he leaped up and caught both of them easily, one in each hand. “Wow,” Trever said.
Ferus sat, turning the droids over in his hands. He checked the weapons system displays. Trever approached curiously. “What are you doing?”
“That blaster fire was benign. There was no charge. I’m just wondering why.”
“We got lucky?”
“And they were locked onto Bog’s personal droid.” Ferus thought back to the moment on the landing platform when Trever had swiped Bog’s droid. The Roshan droids had already been moving toward it. They’d been locked on to Bog’s droid. For what? A demonstration?
Ferus stood, tucking the two Roshan droids into his pocket. “Come on. We’ve got to get back.”
A disgruntled Trever followed him without a word. He quickly found the turbolift to the landing platform above. Ferus climbed into the pilot seat and indicated a cargo space in the back. “You’re going to have to hide in there.” As Trever began to protest, Ferus cut him off. “Just do it. And don’t say a word. I’ll explain later.”
He powered up the engines and rose into the traffic lanes. He saw patrolling airspeeders with stormtroopers, and some now on swoop bikes, flooding the space lanes, looking for the silver craft. Ferus avoided them and entered a stream of traffic back toward the Residence Tower. The whole adventure had taken less than ten minutes.
He came in high, leaving Bog plenty of time to identify him. Stormtroopers ringed the platform, blaster rifles ready.