“Master Lowbacca, what do you think you’re doing?” Em Teedee said shrilly.
Lowie jerked the controls and accelerated even more, spinning around in a sideways loop as the pursuing hit men fired their weapons. The bolts sizzled through the air, and Lowie’s sensitive nose could smell the ionization drifting up, a taint of ozone and other burned gases from Bespin’s atmosphere. The blue cloud car lurched from one side to another, letting the bolts pass harmlessly beneath the hull.
“You realize, of course, that you’re not licensed to pilot this craft,” Em Teedee continued. “You have no training. We’re all doomed!”
Lowie barked a warning.
“How do you expect me to be quiet? This is an emergency!” the little droid wailed, but when Lowie growled that every small distraction would increase their likelihood of crashing, Em Teedee promptly fell silent and blinked his optical sensors with internal misery.
As Lowie soared along, though, his sensitive ears detected a flutter in the cloud car’s engine. The craft may well have been unused for months or even years, and it was severely out of tune. With one glance he confirmed that he had very little fuel as well.
He looked behind at the single predatory craft that still followed. Inside it, the slime-dripping alien and one Wing Guard pushed closer, firing their weapons. Unfortunately, their vehicle did not appear to have the least bit of engine trouble.
Lowie ducked and looped, then finally spun around and headed back toward Cloud City. Maybe someone would see the dogfight. Maybe he could get some help there…. Of course, since some important members of Cloud City’s own infrastructure were out to kill the young Jedi Knights, he wasn’t sure he could trust any offer of assistance.
In the clouds and rising tendrils of mists he saw no place to hide. Lowie’s cloud-car engine popped and sputtered again. He wrestled for control as the vehicle suddenly began losing altitude. The engine picked up again and he climbed … but during the brief interval he had lost most of his lead. His pursuers came right behind him. The roar of their engines filled his ears.
He ducked his head as a blast streaked directly above him, so close that it singed his ginger fur. Lowie did what he could, accelerating, punching all the controls in an attempt to find some kind of emergency override. Then, with a disheartening pop, the hum of the turbines dropped to a lower pitch. The engines barely managed to keep the cloud car moving along. Lowie growled in despair.
Suddenly the hunters were right beside him.
Lowie searched for some kind of weapon, but the vehicle he had commandeered was no more than a pleasure craft, a skyskimmer used for racing among the clouds—and even as a racer, this cloud car wasn’t much good. He hoped he had at least bought enough time for Jacen and Tenel Ka to escape in their own cloud car.
Beside him, the slimy assassin and the treacherous guard leveled their handheld blasters at Lowie. He knew that they had no intention of letting him survive.
With his cloud car failing and unable to outrun them, with no other weapon, Lowie let loose a huge Wookiee roar at them. He flashed his fangs and snarled loudly enough that even his uncle Chewbacca would have been proud.
Just then, shadows passed overhead. Great wings flapped as creatures swooped and ducked. The slime-dripping alien looked up and instinctively fired his blaster, though the bolt went wide. Within moments, seven great thrantas circled the pursuing cloud car, sweeping down.
The painted riders on the thrantas called to each other in a strange high-pitched language, shouting orders to set up a routine, as if it were mere practice for their sky rodeo. The thrantas flitted under the pursuing cloud car now. One of the flying creatures bumped against it, sending it into a spin.
The Wing Guard pilot cried out while the slime-dripping alien waved his blaster pistol, but the riders were much too fast for them. They continued their sky ballet, swirling, looping. Finally, one thranta swooped down just above the pursuing vehicle, so that its rider could drop a slender lasso artfully around the pilot’s chest and arms. Cinching the noose tight, the rider yanked the pilot up out of his seat in the cloud car.
He kicked and struggled, thrashing his head from side to side, but his arms were pinned to his ribs. His weapon dropped from his gloved hand and fell tumbling far down into the soup of clouds below.
The slimy alien assassin, now the only occupant of the cloud car, looked around wildly, trying to avert the flying creatures’ attack. He wrestled to keep the vehicle under control, but as he reached toward the navigation console, another cloud rider skimmed by, close enough to lasso him around the shoulders of his slime-stained uniform. The alien clawed at the rope and pulled himself free just as the thranta rider jerked him out of the cloud car. Still dripping slime, he tumbled over the side of the vehicle to fall, screaming and flailing his arms.
Then two thrantas dove even faster than Bespin’s gravity could pull the would-be assassin downward. The thranta riders snatched the alien in midair, looped a rope around him, and tossed him onto the back of one of their thrantas. When the alien began to struggle, the cloud rider grinned and easily tossed the slimy captive off his thranta, so that his partner could spin around to catch him on the second thranta’s smooth back.
The second thranta now flapped up to join the cluster of other sky performers and the entire troupe made a show of tossing their two helpless captives from one thranta to another as if they were balls in a juggling contest.
Unpiloted now, the pursuing cloud car spun out of control, its rudder sending it into a dive until the craft zoomed at full speed down into the deep layers of impenetrable clouds.
Lowie brought his own puttering vehicle closer to Cloud City. Under the watchful eye of the thranta rider, he used every trick he could think of to increase his altitude and keep the cloud car afloat. Finally he reached an open-rigged set of free-form hover-scaffolding that clung to the underside of Cloud City’s hull.
As he brought the craft in, the thranta riders flew off with their captives. Lowie wondered what the colorful aliens would do with them when they returned to their berths on Cloud City.
“Ah, it is a fine thing to have friends in high places,” Em Teedee said.
Lowie barked his agreement. He held on tightly as the cloud car bumped and skidded onto an open platform on the hover-scaffolding. Sparks flew from scraped metal. Although the engine had completely died, he managed to spin the craft around so that it came to a rest with a loud thump on the unoccupied ledge right near an emergency exit into Cloud City.
Groaning, the Wookiee turned to look at the vast sky behind him, thick with bulging clouds. He saw no sign whatsoever of Jacen or Tenel Ka.
19
Running deeper into the maze of the amusement park, leaving the hovercoaster wreckage behind them, Lando cast about for inspiration. He looked with fresh eyes at the shadowy attractions, the stations that he hoped would one day be rides and entertainment stands enjoyed by millions of beings young and old.
Lando stopped as an idea occurred to him. “Wait a minute! We’ve got an advantage that I’m willing to bet these guards don’t have.”
“I’ll be glad to hear it,” Anja growled.
Lando smiled. “I know this place. I know what it can do, and everything that’s already functional.” Jaina remembered from their initial tour what lay ahead, and she instantly understood what Lando intended.
Zekk’s emerald eyes gleamed; he saw it, too. “Then let’s show them a few of the attractions.”
The Wing Guards approached from separate sides, trying to box them in. When their victims dashed forward, the guards shouted and opened fire again, running at full tilt. Jaina intentionally slowed down just enough to give them an enticement. Closer now… closer…