Trouble on Cloud City

18

Surrounded by the clutter of girders and construction debris, Jaina gripped her extinguished lightsaber, wishing she dared turn it on again to light their way. But for now the tangled darkness offered them places to hide from the turncoat security guards who still hunted the four companions in the abandoned amusement park site. Overhead, however, chameleon creatures scrambled along catwalks and crossbeams, keeping an eye on them as they fled.

Luckily, the chameleon creatures carried neither blaster pistols nor stunners. Instead, they brandished wicked-looking transparent knives with blades fashioned from crystal shards.

Since the creatures were nearly invisible, Jaina had a difficult time counting the camouflaged enemies, but she caught glimpses of the smooth forms as colors and shadows shifted across their bodies. Their cruel lipless mouths grinned as they approached their prey.

“Oh, why didn’t I carry my own hold-out blaster?” Lando muttered. “Ever since I became respectable, I stopped packing weapons.”

Zekk commiserated with him. “Right now I wish I had a lightsaber, too … even my old one from the Shadow Academy.”

“We’ll just play hide-and-seek as long as we can.” Anja seemed more angry than afraid at the prospect of the creatures’ attack.

Jaina gritted her teeth as they hurried along. “Looks like we women’ll have to defend you men.”

“We’ll do our best to help out,” Zekk said, flashing her a grim smile. “Somehow or other.”

The pack of chameleon assassins made soft thumping sounds as they swarmed along the girders above. Lando and his three companions dashed under the twisted superstructure of the enormous looping hovercoaster. It was the most massive part of the amusement park; the heavy beams and bent durasteel framework loomed high above them like a fossilized prehistoric creature.

“We can’t hide under here,” Anja said, ducking as a brilliant bolt zinged past her face. She fired up her acid-yellow blade.

“I don’t know where else to go,” Lando replied. More blaster fire rang out from the shadows as security guards marched into the enclosed space, targeting Anja’s bright lightsaber now. “If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.”

Jaina gazed up at the chameleon creatures slinking along the hovercoaster above them. Their sharp crystal blades twinkled, reflecting the dim emergency lights. Skins rippled and flickered, adjusting their camouflage, as the creatures gathered their forces overhead. Although viciously armed, the chameleons seemed to be relative cowards, unwilling to attack until they had massed for a single strike.

Jaina intended to use that to her advantage. “Everybody stand back,” she said. “And dive for cover.” She stood up, switched on her blazing violet lightsaber, and held it high.

“Wait!” Lando called. “What are you going to—”

The Wing Guards shouted and ran toward them.

“What are you waiting for?” Zekk said. Jaina slashed sideways.

Her dazzling lightsaber blade sliced through the main pillar that supported the central section of the hovercoaster. The energy-blade severed the heavy durasteel brace as easily as if it were a hot knife slicing through Ithorian sap gelatin. She stood back to look at the smoking, sizzling ends of the huge support beam. As if in slow motion, she saw the metal begin to slide. The hovercoaster tilted.

“Look out!” she cried, and dove for a pile of heavy crates.

Anja and Zekk had already scrambled backward. Lando stared in horror. “My hovercoaster!”

The clustered chameleon creatures skittered about, scrambling for balance. Suddenly the entire framework toppled beneath them, groaning, bending, twisting.

Jaina looked up, shielding her eyes against any debris that might fall in their direction. The smooth-skinned creatures tumbled downward, shaken loose from their precarious perches. Their skin color shifted as they tried to match the color of the air through which they fell. Girders groaned and crumpled. With a resounding crash, the central section of the hovercoaster slammed down onto the deckplates.

“That’s just great,” Lando said, astounded. “Now I’m even more behind schedule.”

Showing no consideration whatsoever in response to his financial plight, the traitorous Cloud City security troops opened fire again, running toward the scene of the crash.

“We’ve got them now,” bellowed one deep voice.

As Lowbacca roared across the sky in his commandeered blue cloud car, he hooked sharply off to the left, intentionally veering far away from Jacen and Tenel Ka. Separating and causing their pursuers to split up seemed their best chance of escape.

“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.