“If they haven’t done so already,” Mara said. “No reason we would have heard them—they don’t know exactly how fast we’re moving, so they’ll have made it a big circle. Probably using a wide ring of Chariot assault vehicles or hover-scouts with a group of speeder bikes working around each focal point. It’s the standard stormtrooper format for a web.”
Luke pursed his lips. But what the Imperials didn’t know was that one of the quarry knew exactly what they were up to. “So how do we break out?” he asked.
Mara hissed between her teeth. “We don’t,” she said flatly. “Not without a lot more equipment and resources than we’ve got.”
The faint whine/drone came again from somewhere ahead of them, rising and then fading as it passed by in the distance. “In that case,” Luke said, “we might as well go straight up the middle. Call to them before they see us, maybe.”
Mara snorted. “Like we were casual tourists out here with nothing to hide?”
“You have a better idea?”
She glared at him. But it was a reflexive glare, without any real argument behind it. “Not really,” she conceded at last. “I suppose you’re also going to want to do that role-switch thing Karrde suggested.”
Luke shrugged. “We’re not going to be able to blast our way through them,” he reminded her. “And if you’re right about that pincer movement, we’re not going to sneak through them, either. All that’s left is a bluff, and the better a bluff it is, the better chance we’ve got.”
Mara’s lip twisted. “I suppose so.” With only a slight hesitation, she dropped the power pack from her blaster and handed it and the forearm holster to him.
Luke took them, hefted the blaster in his hand. “They may check to see if it’s loaded,” he pointed out mildly. “I would.”
“Look, Skywalker, if you think I’m going to give you a loaded weapon—”
“And if another vornskr finds us before the Imperials do,” Luke cut her off quietly, “you’ll never get it reloaded fast enough.”
“Maybe I don’t care,” she shot back.
Luke nodded. “Maybe you don’t.”
She glared at him again, but again, the glare lacked conviction. Teeth visibly grinding together, she slapped the power pack into his hand. “Thank you,” Luke said, reloading the blaster and fastening it to his left forearm. “Now. Artoo?”
The droid understood. One of the trapezoidal sections at the top of his upper dome, indistinguishable from all the other segments, slid open to reveal a long, deep storage compartment beneath it. Turning back to Mara, Luke held out his hand.
She looked at the open hand, then at the storage compartment. “So that’s how you did it,” she commented sourly, unhooking his lightsaber and handing it over. “I always wondered how you smuggled that thing into Jabba’s.”
Luke dropped the lightsaber in, and Artoo slid the door shut behind it. “I’ll call for it if I need it,” he told the droid.
“Don’t count on being very good with it,” Mara warned. “The ysalamiri effect is supposed to extend several kilometers past the edge of the forest—none of those little attack-anticipation tricks will work anywhere near Hyllyard City.”
“I understand,” Luke nodded. “I guess we’re ready to go, then.”
“Not quite,” Mara said, eyeing him. “There’s still that face of yours.”
Luke cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t think Artoo’s got anywhere to hide that.”
“Funny. I had something else in mind.” Mara glanced around, then headed off toward a stand of odd-looking bushes a few meters away. Reaching it, she pulled the end of her tunic sleeve down to cover her hand and carefully picked a few of the leaves. “Pull up your sleeve and hold out your arm,” she ordered as she returned with them.
He did so, and she brushed his forearm lightly with the tip of one of the leaves. “Now. Let’s see if this works.”
“What exactly is it supposed to—aah!” The last of Luke’s air came out in an explosive burst as a searing pain lanced through his forearm.
“Perfect,” Mara said with grim satisfaction. “You’re allergic as anything to them. Oh, relax—the pain will be gone in a few seconds.”
“Oh, thanks,” Luke gritted back. The pain was indeed receding. “Right. Now, what about this—mmm!—this blasted itch?”
“That’ll hang on a little longer,” she said, gesturing at his arm. “But never mind that. What do you think?”
Luke gritted his teeth. The itching was not-so-subtle torture … but she was right. Where she’d brushed the leaf the skin had turned dark and puffy, sprinkled with tiny pustules. “Looks disgusting,” he said.
“Sure does,” she agreed. “You want to do it yourself, or you want me to do it for you?”
Luke gritted his teeth. This was not going to be pleasant. “I can do it.”
It was indeed unpleasant; but by the time he finished brushing his chin with the leaves the pain had already begun to recede from his forehead. “I hope I didn’t get it too close to my eyes,” he commented between clenched teeth, throwing the leaves away into the forest and fighting hard against the urge to dig into his face with both sets of fingernails. “It’d be handy to be able to see the rest of the afternoon.”
“I think you’ll be all right,” Mara assured him, studying the result. “The rest of your face is pretty horrendous, though. You won’t look anything like whatever pictures they have, that’s for sure.”
“Glad to hear it.” Luke took a deep breath and ran through the Jedi pain suppression exercises. Without the Force they weren’t all that effective, but they seemed to help a little. “How long will I look like this?”
“The puffiness should start going down in a few hours. It won’t be completely gone until tomorrow.”
“Good enough. We ready, then?”
“As ready as we’ll ever be.” Turning her back to Artoo, she took the travois handles and started walking. “Come on.”
They made good time, despite the lingering tenderness of Mara’s ankle and the distractions inherent in a faceful of itch. To Luke’s relief, the itching began to fade after about half an hour, leaving only puffy numbness behind it.
Mara’s ankle was another story, however, and as he walked behind her and Artoo he could see clearly how she was having to favor it. The added burden of Artoo’s travois wasn’t helping, and twice he almost suggested that they give up on the role switching. But he resisted the urge. It was their best chance of getting out of this, and they both knew it.
Besides which, she had far too much pride to agree.
They’d gone perhaps another kilometer, with the whine/drone of the speeder bikes rising and falling in the distance, when suddenly they were there.
There were two of them: biker scouts in glistening white armor, swooping up to them and braking to a halt almost before Luke’s ears had registered the sound of their approach. Which meant a very short ride, with target position already known.
Which meant that the entire search party must have had them located and vectored for at least the past few minutes. It was just as well, Luke reflected, that he hadn’t tried switching roles with Mara.
“Halt!” one of the scouts called unnecessarily as they hovered there, both swivel blaster cannons trained and ready. “Identify yourselves, in the name of the Empire.”
And it was performance time. “Boy, am I glad you showed up,” Luke called back, putting as much relief into his voice as the puffy cheeks allowed. “You don’t happen to have some sort of transport handy, do you? I’m about walked off my feet.”
There was just the slightest flicker of hesitation. “Identify yourself,” the scout repeated.
“My name’s Jade,” Luke told him. He gestured at Mara. “Got a gift here for Talon Karrde. I don’t suppose he sent some transport, did he?”