Sacrifice

"Open the doors!" he yelled. "Open them now, or I blow her head off!"

Pandemonium broke out. People scattered, leaving a clear area around Lekauf; security officers and the Corellian cop struggled against the tide of bodies trying to get clear, blasters held high. Lekauf was suddenly doing an amazing job of looking red-faced and dangerous.

How's he going to pull this off? We're surrounded. Locked in.

This hadn't been in the briefings. Lekauf was improvising. He had to be. Ben broke away from Shevu and pushed through the crowd.

"I said open the kriffing doors, or you'll be scraping her off the ceiling." Lekauf clicked the blaster and the woman hostage started shrieking, a thin little wail at first that rose into a full-blown panting sequence of screams and yelps. "You're going to let me board my ship and leave here, and she gets to live. Don't mess with me. Don't kriffing mess with me."

"Just let the lady go," said the officer. He pushed through and stood at the edge of the cleared floor area. "Just put the blaster down.

Let her go."

"So you can spray my brains all over the terminal? Yeah. As if."

"Kid, this isn't going to do you any good. We can talk—"

"Yeah, like you'll have a nice chat with me about Gejjen. I killed the scumbag and I'm proud of it. He was caving in to the GA. Lining his own pockets. I'm a patriot. You hear? I love Corellia. They ought to give me a medal."

The officer gestured to the security guard at the exit, and the doors parted. Ben watched in horror, unable to move. Lekauf backed out of the doors, half dragging and half carrying the terrified hostage, and made his way laboriously to the tourer. It seemed to take forever. It was a long, long way to struggle with a woman in a headlock, edging backward, followed by a slowly moving knot of police and guards waiting for the first slip that would