He would need to do some fancy flying to get the craft through the trees to the crash site—but he had to save his friends, offer whatever help he could. Perhaps his noisy approach would startle the TIE pilot enough to make him flee for cover. And then the twins could jump aboard and make their escape.
Lowbacca nudged the throttles forward and lifted the T-23 off its resting place in the trampled undergrowth. The ion afterburners roared as the small ship arrowed through the forest, dodging branches and hanging moss, heading toward his friends—directly into the path of danger.
Back in the clearing, Jacen and Jaina froze for only a moment, then turned and ran, trying to escape—but the bulk of the almost-repaired TIE fighter got in their way. Jaina grabbed Jacen’s arm, and the two of them ran together, frightened but knowing they needed to move, move.
The Imperial pilot fired his blaster, shooting twice into the thicket where Tenel Ka had vanished. Burning brush and splintered twigs flew into the air in a cloud. For an instant Jaina thought their young friend from Dathomir had been killed—but then she heard more leaves rustling and branches snapping as Tenel Ka continued her desperate flight.
The TIE pilot fired into the trees next, blasting the lower branches—but Lowbacca had gotten away. The twins ran around the end of the wrecked fighter, and suddenly Jacen stumbled over a rectangular box of hydrospanners, cyberfuses, and other tools they had gathered for the repair of the crashed ship—and fell headlong.
Jaina grabbed her brother’s arm, trying to yank him to his feet to run again. The ground screeched with an explosion of blaster fire. Three high-energy bolts ricocheted from the age-stained hull of the crashed ship.
Jaina froze, raising her hands in surrender. They couldn’t possibly hide fast enough. Jacen climbed to his feet and stood next to his sister, brushing himself off. The TIE pilot took two steps toward them, encased in battered armor and wearing an expression of icy anger.
“Don’t move,” he said, “or you will die, Rebel scum.”
His black pilot armor was scuffed and worn from his long exile in the jungles. The Imperial’s crippled left arm was stiff like a droid’s, encased in an armored gauntlet of black leather. He had been severely hurt, but it appeared to be an old injury that had long ago healed, though improperly. The pilot was a hard-bitten old warrior. His eyes were haunted as he stared at Jaina.
“You are my prisoners.” He motioned with the old-model blaster pistol that was gripped in his twisted, gloved hand.
“Put down the blaster,” Jaina said quietly, soothingly, using everything she knew of Jedi persuasion techniques. “You don’t need it.” Her uncle Luke had told them how Obi-Wan Kenobi had used Jedi mind tricks to scramble the thoughts of weak-minded Imperials.
“Put down the blaster,” she said again in a rich, gentle voice.
Jacen knew exactly what his sister was doing. “Put down the blaster,” he repeated.
The two of them said it one more time in an echoing, overlapping voice. They tried to send peaceful thoughts, soothing thoughts into the TIE pilot’s mind… just as Jacen had done to calm his crystal snake.
The TIE pilot shook his grizzled head and narrowed his haunted eyes. The blaster wavered just a little, dropping down only a notch.
Why isn’t it working? Jaina thought desperately. “Put down the blaster,” she said again, more insistently. But inside the Imperial fighter’s mind she ran up against a wall of thoughts so rigid, so black-and-white, so clear-cut, that it seemed like droid programming.
Suddenly the pilot straightened and glared at them through those bleak, haunted eyes. “Surrender is betrayal,” he said, like a memorized lesson.
Jacen, seeing their chance slipping away, reached out with his mind and yanked at the weapon with mental brute force.
“Get the blaster!” he whispered. Jaina helped him tug with the Force, reaching for the old weapon in the pilot’s grip. But the armored glove was wrapped so tightly around it that the black gauntlet seemed fastened to the blaster handle. The handgrip of the obsolete weapon caught on the glove, and the TIE pilot grabbed it with his other hand, pointing the barrel directly at the twins.
“Stop with your Jedi tricks,” he said coldly. “If you continue to resist I will execute you both.”
Knowing that the pilot needed only to depress the firing stud—much more quickly than they could ever mind-wrestle the blaster away from him—Jacen and Jaina let their hands fall to their sides, relaxing and ceasing their struggles.
Just then a buzzing, roaring sound crashed through the canopy above—a wound-up engine noise, growing louder.
“It’s Lowie!” Jacen cried.
The T-23 plunged through the branches overhead in a crackling explosion of shattered twigs, plowing toward the crash site at full speed, like a charging bantha.
“What’s he trying to do?” Jacen asked, quietly. “He doesn’t have any weapons on board!”
“He might distract the pilot,” Jaina said. “Give us a chance to escape.”
But the armored Imperial soldier stood his ground at the center of the clearing, spreading his legs for balance and assuming a practiced firing stance. He pointed his blaster at the oncoming air speeder, unflinching.
Jaina knew that if the blaster bolt breached the small repulsorlift reactor, the entire vehicle would explode-killing Lowbacca, and perhaps all of them.
Lowbacca brought the T-23 forward as if he meant to ram the TIE pilot. The desperate Imperial soldier aimed at the T-23’s engine core and squeezed the firing stud.
“No!” Jaina cried, and nudged with her mind at the last instant. Using the Force, she shoved the TIE pilot’s arm and knocked his aim off by just a fraction of a degree. The bright blaster bolt screeched out and danced along the metal hull of the repulsorlift pods. The engine casings melted at the side, spilling coolant and fuel. Gray-blue smoke boiled up. The sound of the T-23 became stuttered and sick as its engines faltered.
Lowie pulled up in the pilot’s seat, swerving to keep from crashing into the Massassi trees. He could barely fly the badly damaged craft.
“Go, Lowie!” Jacen whispered. “Get out while you can.”
“Eject! Before it blows!” Jaina cried.
But Lowbacca somehow managed to gain altitude, spinning around the huge trees and climbing toward the canopy again. His engines smoked, trailing a stream of foul-smelling exhaust that curled the jungle leaves and turned them brown.
“He won’t get far,” the Imperial pilot said in a raw monotone. “He is as good as dead.”
Although the T-23 was out of sight now, far above them in the jungle treetops, Jaina could still hear the engine coughing, failing, and then picking up again as the battered craft limped away. The sounds carried well in the jungle silence. The repulsorlift engine faded in the distance, its ion afterburners popping and sputtering—until finally, there was silence again.
The TIE pilot, his expression still stony, gestured with the blaster pistol. “Come with me, prisoners. If you resist this time, you will die.”
12
Lowbacca wrestled with the T-23, trying to control its erratic flight as it lurched across the treetops.
Thick, knotted smoke trailed in a stuttering plume from his starboard repulsor engine. Lowie risked a quick glance to his right again to assess the damage. No flames, but the situation was grim enough. The late-afternoon air currents were turbulent and threatened to capsize the skyhopper.
The T-23 jolted and dipped. Once, it bounced against some upraised branches, which scraped like long fingernails against the ship’s lower foils and bottom hull, but Lowbacca managed to wrench the T-23 back on course. He was a good pilot; he would make it back to the academy and bring help, no matter what it took. He didn’t know what had happened to Tenel Ka—if she was all right, or if the TIE pilot had captured her by now as well. For all he knew, Lowbacca was the only hope for rescue for his three friends.