Sacrifice

enough to be on the same route, or they might have been rushing to intercept him. If he timed it right, he could slip between them and give Mirta a clean shot at the speeders behind. He gunned the drive.

Fett counted down the seconds. He was almost at the crossroads, but he wasn't going to make it. From the right, one shot in front of him, and he raised his arm to give it a burst of flamethrower, but the rider suddenly fell sideways and crashed to the ground without a shot being fired. Two speeders heading the other way soared to avoid it.

Fett watched the speeder approaching from the left cut across him without even slowing down.

He heard a loud crash, but no ba-dapp of a discharging blaster: had they collided? Had they hit someone who happened to be on the wrong road at the wrong time?

Mirta fired a grenade. "Gotcha!" A ball of flame lit up the night.

"One down, one to go. Reloading."

"Can't see the third speeder."

"Maybe they crashed."

"We've got a couple of minutes before the police join in," Fett said.

"Hey, where did he—"

There was a massive whoomp of a white-hot explosion behind them.

Fett saw the debris falling hot and red in the rearview of his HUD. "Good shot."

"Not me. Didn't fire."

"What is this, a crash epidemic?"