Chapter 18 – Speeder Bike Chase
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Having left our shuttle in a small clearing between the trees, we immediately set off on the mission. Han and Leia are in the lead, with Chewbacca, Luke, and I close behind them. The rest of the Rebels who are here are following us, with the two droids in the back.
As we reach the top of the hill, an uneasy feeling creeps through me again. We're not alone in the forest. We need to be extremely cautious. I can sense a number of other life forms nearby, and I get the distinct feeling they aren't friendly. Chewbacca catches up with the ones in front and suddenly both he and Leia drop to the ground, making a "get down" motion. We all immediately fall to the ground.
I crawl the rest of the way up the hill to join the other two, and Han and Luke follow suit. Not far down the other side of the hill, two Imperial troopers are walking about amidst the bushes. Scouts, presumably. Speeder bikes are parked not far away.
"Shall we try and go around?" questions Leia in a low voice.
"It'll take time," objects Han, "This whole party'll be for nothing if they see us."
"We'll have to try to take them out, before they have a chance to react," I decide. It's our only hope for continuing undetected.
Leia nods her agreement before motioning to the other Rebels to stay where they are. The five of us quietly making our way down the hill, careful to stay behind the trunks of the towering trees so that they won't catch sight of us. But I have a distinct feeling that something is going to go wrong. Well, that's usually what happens, isn't it?
We stop at the edge off a clearing, ducking down to the ground between the brush and trees. "Chewie and I will take care of this. You stay here," whispers Han. I think it would be better if I went too, but there's no time for arguing right now. Besides, if something goes wrong, I'll be close enough to quickly intervene. Hopefully.
"Quietly, there might be more of them out there," warns Luke.
"Hey, it's me," grins Han before he and Chewbacca turn and begin sneaking through the bushes towards the scouts. I watch tensely as they get closer and closer, Han arrives right behind his scout first, but promptly steps on a twig. Great job.
The scout whirls around, slamming Han into the tree behind him. He falls to the ground as the scout yells, "Go for help! Go!"
"Good job," I mutter sarcastically, rising to my feet and scramble through the brush towards them, shoving tree branches out of my way as I run. No use hiding here anymore.
Han jumps up, knocking the other scout hard into the tree and they both fall to the ground. Soon they're both engaged in a furious fist fight on the ground.
The second scout leaps onto his bike and zooms away into the trees, but Chewbacca fires at him. He flies through air before falling to the ground, dead. The now abandoned bike slams to a stop since no one is control anymore.
"Great. Come on," Luke mutters sarcastically from behind me. He rises to his feet, motioning for Leia to come with him. They hurry to catch up with me, Leia already drawing her blaster as we approach the fighting pair.
"Over there!" I suddenly hear Leia hiss from behind me, "Two more of them!" Quickly turning around, my gaze follows to where she's pointing. Taking a step back so I can see in between the bushes, I spot two more scouts sitting on their speeder bikes, and another empty one sitting not far away.
"I see them," Luke replies. The two of scouts promptly whiz away into the trees. Leia runs over to the other speeder with both of us close behind.
"Wait, Leia!" calls Luke as she fires up the bike, preparing to zoom away after them. He jumps onto the bike behind them as the bike picks up speed and they whiz away into the trees, leaving me behind. Oh great. But actually, there's something I can do.
"Hey, wait!" yells Han, scrambling to his feet. The scout jumps up also, attacking him again and they're both engaged in a furious fist fight once more. Han and Chewbacca can handle this scout on their own. Especially since he doesn't even have a way to get out of here.
I race past them, Force-leaping through the trees towards where the other speeder which belonged the scout Chewbacca had shot would be. It's right up against a log but appears to still be drivable. Scrambling on, I try to fire it up. Luckily for me, it fires up immediately, and I slam on the controls, zipping away into the trees. I reach out into the Force, allowing it to guide me in the right direction – to where Luke and Leia are pursuing the other two scouts.
I hear the distant sound of shooting as I continue to zoom along. I'm gaining ground on them, probably because I'm coming at them from a different angle than where they're going. Despite the potential danger of hitting a tree and becoming history, I force the bike to go at maximum speed, barely missing striking the trees as I dodge around them. Being with Anakin so long made me fairly used to insane piloting, which comes in handy on the ground as well.
Finally, as I make a few more turns around the towering trees, the other speeders come into view, though it's not quite what I expected to see. Luke and Leia both have their own speeders now and they're pursuing one of the scouts. Luke must have taken the speeder from the second one.
But not far ahead of me, though still a distance behind the twins are two more imperial scouts pursuing them. They must have spotted them during the chase. Great. If this chase doesn't end soon, we could easily attract much more attention to ourselves.
The two Imperials in the back are firing their laser cannons on the twins, who are in turn firing at the Imperial in the front. I fire at the two Imperials from behind, just as one of their shots glances off Luke's bike.
"Keep on that one! I'll take on these two!" calls Luke, slowing down his speeder ever so slightly and giving Leia the chance to zoom off ahead.
I fire on the Imperials again. A shot strikes one of them, sending the bike careening out of control before it smashes into a nearby tree, exploding into a firework show of smoke and flames. I wince slightly, as always hating seeing – and feeling – someone die.
Luke suddenly slows down his speeder, causing the unsuspecting Imperial to go zooming straight past him into the forest. I pick up speed and fall in close to Luke as we both continue our pursuit of him. At least no one is behind us anymore. Both of us open fire at the other scout. The explosions rain down near him, one of them glancing off the side of his bike. He only increases his speed in response.
We continue zooming along behind him, dodging around the tree trunks and over or under fallen trees as the forest thickens. Luke manages to move a little way ahead of me, rapidly gaining ground on the scout. The scout turns, firing a blaster several times at both of us. One of them grazes the side of my bike, nearly sending me into a tree but I quickly regain control and pick up speed again.
Luke uses the scout's momentary distraction to his advantage, zooming up right along next to him. I don't attempt to shoot at the scout again, so as not to risk hitting Luke. The scout slams his bike into Luke's, shoving it to the side as they rapidly approach a fallen tree crossing the path. The scout dives underneath the log while Luke's flies over the top, landing right next to the scout again. And now they're both heading straight towards a very wide tree trunk – and Luke is about to hit it. But there's nothing I can do.
Slamming on the controls of his bike, he sends it flying horizontally into the air over the scout's head, landing right next to him and barely missing the tree. The only problem now is that the bikes are both locked together, traveling as one. I contemplate jumping onto the scout's bike but as they rapidly approach several other huge trees, I reconsider. After all, attacking the scout from behind like that could easily send us both smashing straight into the trees. And then we'd all be smoking history.
Unable to dodge the tree Luke is rapidly approaching, he leaps into the air off his bike, disappearing from sight into the brush. But I can feel that he's alright. The bikes separate from each other, Luke's smashing into the tree in an explosion and the scout's zooming along ahead.
He spins the bike around and begins firing at me. I draw one of my lightsabers with one hand, deflecting the shots back at him while keeping control of my bike with the other. It's too bad I can't be on the same bike as someone else like Anakin and I always did. He flew while I shielded us. Usually standing. That wouldn't work going at such high speeds, though. Spinning around through the trees to avoid striking them, my bike takes a direct hit from one of the blaster bolts as he continues to fire.
I leap into air away from it not a moment too soon as it crashes into the tree, going up in flames. The scout zooms his bike towards me, and I leap through the air again, landing closer to it. Realizing what I'm about to do, he tries to slow his bike a little too late. My lightsaber slices through part of his bike, sending it careening into the nearby trees before going up in a ball of fire.
Deactivating my lightsaber, I let out a long sigh and glance around. All scouts have been dealt with, except perhaps the one with Leia. But I don't really sense any danger coming from her, so she must be managing fine. Snapping branches in the brush draws my attention as I see Luke approaching.
"You alright, Ahsoka?" he asks, looking rather worn out. Maybe that's something we should have worked on a little more.
"Yes," I confirm, "You?"
"I'm fine," he sighs, "Now let's get back to the others."
"Which will be a long walk, considering that we don't have a bike," I point out.
"Exactly," Luke practically groans, "So let's get moving."
Using the Force to guide us once more, we head back in the direction of the rest of the Rebels. Reaching into the Force to hold off my exhaustion, I take off running as fast as I can. This will take a while, and there's no time to waste. It's a long time later before we finally arrive at the rest of the group.
"Oh, General Solo, somebody's coming, Oh!" I hear Threepio exclaiming up ahead. At least we're almost there.
We both step out from the brush to see the entire squad standing there, their weapons pointed our direction. With an exhausted sigh, Luke steps over to a boulder and sits down. I sink onto the ground next to him.
"Luke! Ahsoka! Where's Leia?" demands Han, stepping away from the rest of the squad and approaching us.
"What?" I exclaim in surprise.
"She didn't come back?" demands Luke, concerned. And all this time I assumed she just used her bike to beat us back here.
"I thought she was with you," frowns Han.
"We got separated," Luke explains.
"Not long after I caught up with them," I add. Luke and I slowly rise to our feet.
"Hey, we better go look for her," decides Luke. Han nods his agreement before motioning to lead Rebel officer.
"Take the squad ahead. We'll meet at the shield generator at 0300," Han tells him.
"Come on, Artooie," I say, glancing down at the droid, "We'll need your scanners." The squad turns and heads off one direction, while our group of six, droids included, head off a different direction, deeper into the forest, the same direction that chase had led us on before.