[Last Of The Jedi] - 08(13)
The stormtroopers hadn’t seen Solace and Ry-Gaul yet. The Jedi were moving so quietly and so fast that
Clive could barely see them himself. His job was to stay out of the battle and snatch Amie.
Through the spitting rain he saw the spinning arc of lightsabers. Ry-Gaul raised a hand and an entire line of stormtroopers shot backward as though pushed by a tur-bodozer. He couldn’t see Solace, just the tracing of light moving through the air as bodies slammed into pavement. Now streaks of blasterfire shattered the blackness like cracks on glass. All the while he was running, lungs aching. He could hear his panting breath.
He had seen Ferus use his lightsaber, but Clive felt a fresh sense of amazement at witnessing the two Jedi in action. It was perfect movement, perfect timing. For two Jedi who rarely strung a sentence together, they knew how to communicate. Ry-Gaul and Solace made taking down two squads of stormtroopers armed with blasters and grenades look easy.
It was all so fast. He knew they couldn’t wait for him, but he was falling behind. Amie was in danger.
She must have faked her weakness, because suddenly she was running from her captors, diving and rolling under the starship ramp. Clive fumbled for his blaster but then it was in his hand as he dived underneath from the opposite end and found her. Her eyes were clear and determined, but he could also see her fear.
“You’re supposed to come with me,” he said.
This was the hard part. Trusting the Jedi. They had told him he needed to run, to not think about the blasters at his back, that they’d protect him. He just needed to take Amie and go.
He wasn’t good at trusting someone to watch his back, but Amie didn’t seem to have the same problem. She nodded, and they ran, with Clive shielding her as best he could. They could hear the explosions behind them but they didn’t turn. The permacrete was slick with rain but they flew over it, heading back down toward the lake’s edge.
They were almost at the end of the permacrete when the security lights suddenly blazed on at full power. Clive heard the rapid fire of an E-Web repeating blaster, which was definitely something you didn’t want to hear at your back.
“Jump!” he cried. They jumped down the slope to the beach, rolling into darkness. Clive got a mouthful of sand.
He came up spitting and cursing. He helped Amie up and they raced along the beach. He knew any moment there would be searchlights sweeping the area, but they didn’t have far to go. Amie was starting to gasp, and she held her side.
“Almost there,” he grunted.
The Eleven had prepared one more surprise -another portal, this one hidden in the rocky hillside that rose to the cliff overlooking the lake. He saw Dona rise from the wet rocks like a seal. She beckoned to them
They made it inside the portal as the searchlights blazed and swept the shoreline. They burrowed into the trail in the rocks, moving fast. The passage was cleverly concealed, with rocks and seaweed layered over it so it would be invisible from the air. At times they had to crawl, but they were able to make it up the cliff without being spotted.
They got to the top and came out at a small parking area for airspeeders. This overlook had once been a popular spot but had fallen into disrepair with the coming of the Empire’s battalion.
Dona’s gray hair was plaited down her back. She was dressed as an Ussan priest, the ones who brought bodies to burial and drove white carts pulled by native beasts called dhunas.
Amie let out a choked laugh. “This is my escape? Being dead?”
“You arguing? Go!”
Amie slipped into the white cart festooned with flowers. Dona quickly clapped down the board that covered the open back. She began to drive the dhuna forward with crooning noises that were like singing, the chants the priests made as they walked through the streets. She headed up the beach trail to the paved lane.
Clive ran along the permacrete, his lungs on fire. He had to loop around and come up through a wooded area into a main thoroughfare of the Moonstone District.
He’d walked the route yesterday. If everything went according to plan, he’d find a member of the Eleven waiting for him.
They had all pitched in. Amie would be transferred from hand to hand, from cart to speeder to gravsled. The Jedi would follow. As Amie approached the safe house, the helpers would drop away until only the original team was left.
There were multiple checkpoints to pass through. Diversions to stage. It wasn’t over yet. Even now the alarms were no doubt ringing in the Imperial garrisons all over the city.
Amie was free, but she wasn’t safe. They still had a long way to go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Trever found his way slowly to his piloting class. It turned out there were maps in central kiosks throughout the complex - only nobody had told him. Each map gave him small portions of the layout, so he was never quite sure if he was going in the right direction.