Chapter Eleven: Pursuit

If he'd been asked earlier in the day, Obi-Wan would have said that attempting to crash-land half a capital ship on the surface of a burning planet with corpses all around him was the most nerve-wracking experience of his life. It was really remarkable, he thought, as his cheek almost scraped a rock wall for the fourth or fifth time, how short a time it had taken for that experience to fall back to a distant second place.

There was nothing to hold him to the swoop bike. Nothing to protect his face from sharp stone protrusions hurtling toward it. Nothing to filter choking exhaust away from his open mouth. Just him, and the rattling metal beneath him, and the demon in the shape of a man who piloted it.

Is it just my imagination, he thought as his stomach gave another lurch, or are the tunnels getting narrower? He attempted to convey the question to his driver, who merely grinned. "That's the idea!" he shouted back. "At least, I think it was her idea!"

That cleared that up.

It had to be the Force that was guiding this Anakin. Not that it was impossible for a normal being to wrench a swoop bike through these caverns, as evidenced by the occasional screams of the gang members from behind. But the way he moved was—there were no words for it. Almost as if he were going out of his way to get killed. Obi-Wan could swear that more than once he'd heard a shriek of metal and seen a shower of sparks trailing behind them when the bike skipped off a stalactite, had felt his hair brush the ceiling of a particularly tight space. But Anakin hadn't seemed to register anything at all.

Suddenly, a flare of heat and the ping of a blaster bolt from behind—the Jedi whipped his head around to see that two bikers had closed, and one had his pistol propped against his handlebars. "There's no room for evasive maneuvers in here!" he bellowed in Anakin's ear. And I think my cloak is on fire, he added to himself.

"I'll get us some room," came the reply. "Dead ahead, get ready."

"For what?"

The swoop's pilot stayed silent in reply. Another shot soared by Obi-Wan's ear; he swatted back with the Force, hoping the push would trip up one of their pursuers. The fire in his throat from inhaling engine fumes was starting to ease a little, at least; the air here seemed moister for some reason.

"Okay, here it is," Anakin shouted. "Grab my collar, and HOLD ON. I'll tell you when to pull me up."

Oh, I see, the general thought. He really is crazy.

Ahead of them was nothing but blank rock wall.


Flash.

Anakin felt Ben's fist tighten around his jacket collar as a shot snapped past, then tighten even harder as he saw the rock face growing rapidly larger in front of them.

Flash.

He saw—not with his eyes, but a clear picture nonetheless—the lead two bikers closing in behind them, the rest of the gang farther back but still hot on their tail.

Flash.

He heard the whine of the bike as its engine pushed to its limit, felt the wiggle of a slightly loose bolt that he really hoped wasn't about to pop right about now.

Flash.

He clamped his mechanical fist around the right handlebar of the swoop bike and willed the arm not to move.

Flash.

He braced his knees against the bike's steering column.

Flash.

Above all, Anakin held the image of what he was about to do firmly in his mind, unwavering, willing it to be a vision of the future and not the last dream of a doomed man.

The swoop bike he was piloting was powered by two different kinds of engine. There was the main drive, the one that shoved the bike forward through the tunnels at speeds Anakin was well aware it was never supposed to approach. Most swoop main engines were wildly inefficient, and pretty dangerous to be strapped to the top of. But there were also the repulsorlifts lining the bottom—the low-energy-signature, unintrusive, nearly indestructible antigrav clusters that allowed the swoop to hover above the ground. Those repulsorlifts didn't have any sort of default off switch, for the simple reason that they were never meant to be turned off; the manufacturer could never have conceived of a reason for why the bike's owner would want it not to hover.

Anakin, fortunately, was blessed with a more creative mind.

Flash. The wall was getting closer. Ben shouted something panicked.

Flash. Another packet of plasma spattered against the rear of the bike.

Flash.

The swoop's lamp caught the edge of their salvation, lying just in front of a solid mass of stone. A hole in the ground, about two meters in diameter and leading into blackness.

Flash.

Anakin inhaled. Closed his eyes. Exhaled.

Flash.

And then he did the craziest thing he had done in years.

He swung himself off to one side of the swoop bike. He was suspended there, held in place by his mechanical arm and the iron grip of his passenger. Time seemed to slow as he plunged his flesh hand into the inner workings of the swoop bike. It wasn't the same model of bike he owned himself, but it was made by the same manufacturer. And that meant the wire supplying power to the repulsorlifts should be right . . . here.

He gripped the wire between thumb and forefinger and waited. Waited for the right moment. Waited while his passenger shouted at him about the wall they were going to hit, as if he didn't know.

And then he iced the repulsorlifts.

The swoop plummeted as Anakin yanked the power cord out of its housing. He felt the air slice past his face like a million tiny blades. Heard the detonation as the lead pursuers plowed their flying fuel tanks into solid rock. Saw, in his mind's eye, the plume of flame erupting from the crash passing just over his and Ben's heads.

Flash.

One thousandth of a second later, he jammed the cord back where it belonged. All engines on full. A furious shout of "NOW" left Anakin's mouth, and Ben seemed to understand. He hauled the pilot up by his collar, and Anakin unlocked his right arm from its death grip on the handlebar.

The repulsorlifts caught them just in time to avoid the swoop drowning itself in the reservoir that lay about twenty feet below the hole they'd just plunged down. A great gout of moisture washed over them as Anakin gunned the engine, launching the bike forward. Ben sputtered water from his mouth. Shook his head to clear droplets from his eyes.

Anakin felt himself start to laugh. "Think that did the trick?"


It was intended rhetorically, but Obi-Wan, to his great regret, had to reply. "No," he said, extending his perceptions—a difficult task with the adrenaline that was coursing through his system—"there are five still on us."

If the pilot wondered to himself how his passenger could know that without looking, he didn't raise the question. "Well, there's a junction coming up that leads to one of the old mining tunnels, we can lose 'em there." A growing whine started to emerge from behind. "Here come your five."

Obi-Wan craned his head over his shoulder. Sure enough, bikes were starting to become visible. "Fly straight for a few seconds," he barked.

"No offense, Ben, but you hired me to be the pilot. All that'll do is make us an easier target—"

"Do it!"

The other man nudged their nose upward to avoid glancing off a stalagmite and shrugged. "You're the one they're shooting at."

Their flight path evened out. The pursuing gang members were catching up quickly enough that Obi-Wan could make out the two in the lead: a pair of Rodians, each of them with a blaster in his hand. Heart hammering against his chest, he unwrapped his left arm from Anakin's waist and held his palm in the aliens' direction. He focused, breathed out, and gave a mental tug.

The two swoops' noses suddenly curved inward, glancing off each other. It wasn't much, but at this speed it was enough. Rodian and Rodian went end over end in headlong tumbles that the Jedi was rather confident they would not be walking away from.

Anakin shot a glance behind him. "Niiiiice. Stalagmite in their path?"

"Something like that." The Jedi took one last look back and frowned. "Still three to deal with."

"Make that five," the pilot said. "Hang on!"

He gunned the speeder's motor, shooting his droid arm up for a split second to point down the straightaway ahead of them. Obi-Wan squinted—two bikes bracketing a third.

It appeared they'd caught up to Padmé.


Her husband's tinkering had its uses, Padmé would readily admit. There was no way she would have been able to pull that dive off if it hadn't been for his aftermarket repulsor jammer, no way she could have stayed ahead of her pursuers this long without his modified intake for the main engine.

But the downside was the number of extra buttons and switches meant the thing required two hands to pilot, and she really needed her trigger hand free right now.

The two gang members behind her now didn't have blasters suitable to use while mounted on a bike—each had a rifle slung across his shoulders, for which Padmé was profoundly grateful. But each did carry an electrostave, a meter-and-a-half length of metal that discharged a poisonous purple bolt of electrical charge every time it was swung. She was, she estimated, maybe three meters ahead of them.

True, the force required for one of them to nudge her swoop with his stave would very likely knock him into a wall, giving both of them a premature end. But that thought wasn't especially comforting right now.

From the earpiece, crackling to life as its mate got close enough for the signal: "We're coming up on you now."

She risked a glance back and saw Anakin and the stranger rocket into view, their swoop's lamp a pinprick of light in the distance; the biker on her left took this opportunity to jab at her face with his stave, and though he was too far away to possibly connect she flinched back to forward position anyway. Hopefully the hole-dive had stymied anyone who was heading after her husband and his new friend; she could really use a hand right now.

The biker on her left shouted something incoherent and flailed with his stave again; Padmé could hear sparks as the discharge struck the cave wall. Anakin, old buddy old pal, now would be a really great time for you to catch up.


Padmé's swoop bike—his swoop bike—was struggling valiantly, but Anakin could see even from back here that the reach the staves gave her two pursuers was too much. They would inch within striking distance before she reached the junction to the old mining thoroughfare, and that would be that.

"I don't suppose you have a blaster?" he asked Ben.

"Afraid not," the other man replied. "You?"

"Left it in my other evening jacket." He clenched his jaw; the fun had suddenly drained out of things.

"This is where you tell me to hang on, yes?"

Anakin raised his upper lip in something that resembled a grin but he was sure looked a good deal less friendly. "Wait til I tell her we're practically finishing each other's sentences."

As he mechanical hand kept the throttle at full, his flesh one awkwardly reached across his face to tap the commlink wedged in his ear. "Padmé? Padmé!"

"Little busy here, dear."

"Do you have the snake?"

"I need bo—" She paused to dodge another jab from an electrostave. "Dammit! I need both hands here, that's not a good idea. "

"Fresh out, bad will have to do," he replied, and turned to Ben. "Don't move a muscle unless I tell you to."

He fancied he saw a longsuffering plea in the stranger's eyes. "I don't suppose you could warn me what you're about to do?"

Anakin gripped the handlebars tight enough for his mechanical hand to creak. "Trust me, you'll feel better if you don't know."


As soon as Padmé released her right hand's grip, the bike began to list to the left. She threw her weight as hard as she could in the other direction, doing her best to locate the snake along her belt. This would have to be quick.

There—she'd snagged it. A little metal cylinder the width of her thumb and maybe six inches long, perfectly unassuming. Sitting in the center was a single button, to be depressed with one's thumb.

Once that had happened, she'd have about half a second.

The bike tugged more and more insistently to the left. The sound of the swoops behind her grew with each passing moment.

She ground her teeth together and spoke through them into her earpiece. "I hate you. Really. Really. Hate."

An electrostave blazed with violet light just within her peripheral vision.

She hit the button.


What happened next did so over the course of approximately one second.

Padmé Amidala screamed in mingled fury and effort and heaved the snake over her shoulder. Her bike, its pilot's focus diverted from keeping it even, swung to the left, heading not up and into the mining junction but into the gaping black of a cavern branching off to the side.

As its thrower peeled off course, the metal rod soared in front of the two bikers who'd been following her. The half-second she'd calculated for ceased, and on either end of the rod a hole opened up. From each hole shot a bar of metal the width of a human index finger, maybe a meter long. The sharp points on the end of each metal rod stabbed into the cave walls, anchoring the bar in place directly in front of Padmé's pursuers.

The bikers had no time to form a reaction to this turn of events. The extended snake took their heads off just below the chin, as clean and painlessly as any laser sword might have done. Had Anakin kept to his flight path, the overzelaously-thrown piece of metal would have done the same to him and his companion.

Fortunately for both, Anakin was already moving. He threw his weight sideways, pulling the swoop and its passenger with him—all three tilted ninety degrees on their central axis, the snake whistling over their heads.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, thanks to the Force, was able to witness all of this at such a slow speed that he understood perfectly what was happening, and very strongly wished he did not possess this ability.

And then he was upright, and Anakin was pulling the swoop hard to the left, and with a sickening lurch everything sped up again.


"Uh oh," Anakin said.

Obi-Wan could only gasp for air for a few seconds, and then managed—"THAT wasn't 'Uh-oh'?!"

The pilot shook his head. "Forget it."

What little light had been present in the straightaway they'd just left was rapidly diminishing—everything outside the swoop's lamp was pitch-black. "Padmé?" Anakin barked into his earpiece. "What happened? You all right?" He was quiet for a few seconds and then swore. Obi-Wan could feel the bike start to ease down.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Lost the damn signal," the pilot replied. "And if I'm not careful we'll run right into her in this mess." He blew out a frustrated breath. "At least we lost them—"

A resounding CRASH sounded from ahead.

"What the—" Obi-Wan started, and then froze. The swoop turned a corner, and its lamp caught a figure crumpled on the ground.

Without warning the e-brake slammed on. Obi-Wan saw what was about to happen a second before it did, and directed as much energy as he could downward.

He and Anakin pitched off the bike and slammed into the makeshift cushion of Force power. The Jedi felt something in his ribs crack, whatever sound it would have made muffled by the dying scream of the swoop as it careened on, riderless, into the tunnel beyond. He let the Force cushion go, falling the final six inches to the ground, and cried out as his ribs hit the floor.

Anakin was already up and moving. "Padmé! Padmé!"


All he could see, for a few moments, was her body there on the cave floor. Arms splayed at a horrible angle, skull dashed against the rock, eyes glazed and lifeless. For those few moments, he wanted nothing more than to reach out and break the world. To rip and tear at the stone and the bikes and Ben and everything else that happened to be within reach.

And then he blinked, and she was sitting upright and swearing at him, and he realized that nothing he had just seen was real.

"What . . ." he panted, unable to get the words out. "Happened . . ." He forced himself to swallow, to breathe; it felt as though his throat were constricting.

"Your gods-damned bike clipped a wall is what happened," she said, her eyes blazing with fury and adrenaline and terror, "and if I hadn't thrown myself off I wouldn't be here right now, and—"

And then they were embracing, and all he could feel was her warm, living body in his arms, and the sudden fear of himself eating at his heart.

From behind them, a cleared throat. "I'm . . . sorry to interrupt . . ."

Just like that, the rage was back in Padmé's face. She broke away from her husband. "You," she spat, and whirled to face Ben.

He was hauling himself to his feet, clutching at the side of his chest, and paying her not the faintest bit of attention. Impossible weariness was etched across his face. "They're coming," he said matter-of-factly.

Anakin willed the blood roaring through his ears to cease, the pounding of his pulse to simmer down. In the distance, there was a faint whine. One that was growing less and less faint with each passing moment.

With a monumental effort, he attempted a joke. "Gotta give 'em credit, they're . . . persistent."

Padmé pulled the blaster pistol from her belt and hit the priming lever. "How many?"

"Three," he replied. "Assuming they all made it."

She retreated to the opposite wall of the cavern, bracing her back against it and clutching the pistol with both hands. "This is a stupid way to die. A stupid, stupid way to die."

Ben spoke again. "Do you have any other weapons?"

Without looking at the man, Anakin pulled a small black rod from the inner lining of his jacket with his shaking flesh hand. He flicked his wrist, and the weapon snapped out to its full length. A collapsible stun baton. Two feet long, good for nonlethal crowd control and nothing else. "For all the good it'll do—"

"Give it to me, and get clear."

It was not a request. Nor was it necessarily a command. It was stated simply, briefly, and with absolute certainty.

Anakin looked Ben in the eye, and thought that if any part of him weren't already vibrating with adrenaline, he would be taken aback by what he saw there. The other man's gaze felt like a singularity, one that compelled absolute attention. Anakin saw exhaustion, and resignation, and something like serenity. He stumbled, and shook his head, and said, "What?"

Ben sighed. Anakin started to blink.

When he opened his eyes again, the stun baton was in Ben's hands and he was on his back next to Padme.

He opened his mouth to speak, only for bruises to smear themselves across his eyes and the back of his head to shriek. The bruises started to fade, but the shriek just grew louder, and louder. Absently, he thought to himself: Oh. Bikers. Right.

Squinting, he watched Ben stride out into the center of the tunnel and hit the discharge button on the stun baton. It crackled with faint arcs of electricity, illuminating the cave a few feet in any direction. Padmé was shouting something: You idiot, get out of the way, you're gonna get run over—

Three pinpoint lights appeared in the distance, and started to grow.

Anakin tried to sit up. Felt his head squeal again. Collapsed back against the wall. Ah well. Maybe it was better this way, the part of his brain that was still up to the task of pondering suggested. At least now, if the world ended up breaking, he wouldn't have been the one to do it.

The pinpoints were bigger now, and impossibly bright, Ben a black silhouette against them.

Just before Anakin squeezed his eyes shut, he saw the silhouette whirl from one side to the other in a single smooth motion. There was a cacophony of sound, a blaze of illumination. And then everything went black.


REPUBLIC ARCHIVES: SWOOP BIKE

Planetary ground transportation is available in a variety of forms. For comfort and safety, there are landspeeders. For high speed open-air travel, there are speeder bikes. For the truly death-defying adrenaline junkies, there are swoop bikes.

Derisively referred to as "an engine with a seat" by those with no fondness for the mode of transportation; swoop bikes are the cheaper, faster, and more dangerous cousin of the speeder bike. They are a favorite of tinkerers and gearheads who enjoy modifying vehicles, and the highly dangerous sport of swoop racing is common on less settled worlds. Small-time criminals will often form "swoop gangs" and travel around on their souped-up vehicles intimidating anyone who gets in their way.

Flying a swoop at full throttle requires incredible reflexes. In the interest of self-preservation, most swoop bike owners will never truly push their vehicle to its full potential. Several years ago, a piece of legislation attempted to mandate that kinetic deflector shields be installed on all new swoop bikes as a safety measure. This was largely ineffective. Most swoop bikes on the market were built before the legislation was passed, and are therefore exempt from the rule. Swoop enthusiasts insist these kinetic deflectors alter the aerodynamics of a bike and ruin the driving experience. Anyone who purchases a brand new swoop is likely to disconnect and remove the shield generator before even powering up the bike for the first time.