Sacrifice

conscious of the reason for his search. He set off for the landing strip at top speed down freight lanes that had the lightest traffic, noting that Mirta was happily fixing a grenade launcher attachment to her blaster with both hands and gripping the saddle of the speeder with her knees. She looked like she was used to fast getaways.

"You're doing okay for a dead man, Ba'buir.'"

"Your dad trained you well, too."

"Most of that I learned from Mama."

"Well . . . she did a good job of it."

Fett took one hand off the bars and activated Slave Ps remote controls. Her drives would be primed: he could drop the speeder into the cargo hold and get off this planet inside a minute. In his HUD display, he was already scanning databases for that Twi'lek family name.

This was the one time he felt truly, thrillingly alive: when he was winning, being the best, surviving. Is that it? Is that all I can do? He almost envied the Beviins and Carids of this world, who delighted in simple things like good food and family. But there was a clean, uncomplicated satisfaction in danger. It erased worries and fears and memories. There was only the moment, and surviving it.

Fett concentrated on feeling good and ignoring the pain right up to the time his rearview caught speeder headlights closing fast and Mirta turned to level her blaster.

"They must be calling in our course," she said. "You think it's Fraig's grunts, or security?"

"We won't get the police's attention until you fire that blaster."

His motion sensors showed two speeders in pursuit, and two coming at them from the right on the crossroads ahead. Another single speeder was approaching from the left. They might have been ordinary citizens unlucky