Chapter 63
Vaapad
His lungs were burning, and the heels of his feet were in pain. His boots were made for steady shipboard use, not for sprinting.
Come to think of it, his lungs were more used to steady shipboard use than sprinting as well. But right now, they'd have t adapt, because Jorj Car'das needed to get out of there. The pain in his ankle from when he'd stumbled as the Jedi shoved him aside didn't matter. The burning in his lungs didn't matter.
Two ships were circling around like vulture, looking for the dark Jedi. Jorj had seen him leap up into the air, clinging to the front of the strange anvil-shaped ship. A lightsaber had been ignited, shots had been fired, but by that point Car'das was only seeing them as a flash out of the corner of his eye, because he was running full tilt towards his ship.
His crew had to be warned. His crew mattered. Their lives mattered.
The side door to the hangar was open.
"Thank the Force," he said as he shut it and locked it behind him. The flimsy door might not stop a lightsaber, but at least it would slow down his pursuer.
If the Jedi was still alive. And still interested in him.
The Talus Twin's engines were on, and the ramp was down. He ran up the ramp and slapped the button at the top.
"We've got to get out of here! Vel, fire up the repulsors, and if the bay doors are locked down, then blast them open," he shouted up to the cockpit.
The only response was a loud, wet, cracking sound, followed by a gurgling shout.
Once the ramp closed, the button panel to open it again tore itself off the wall in a shower of sparks.
Car'das knew what he'd see when he walked to the cockpit. The Bpfasshi Jedi stood there, the Talus Twin's Rulean gunner, Stortch, levitating in the air in front of him. Stortch was bent over nearly backwards, whimpering in pain.
"Captain," the Jedi said, "you will take your seat and fly us out of the system. And you will use the identification codes given to you by this ally of yours, this... what was his name?"
The Jedi tightened his Force grip around the Rulean, and Stortch screamed again as another loud pop was heard. Car'das couldn't tell if the Jedi was breaking bones, or just putting them out of joint, but either way, the poor gunner was in pain.
"Doriana... Kinman Doriana! I'm sorry Jorj, I had to tell him... ah..."
"Let him go, let them all go, and I'll take you there." Jorj said. "You don't have to hurt them."
The Jedi turned his head towards Car'das, and with a gesture, he tossed the Rulean aside. There was another crack as the gunner hit the deck, hard.
"I give the commands. You follow them. I took what I needed from your copilot, but the alien's mind was too strange. So I took what I needed another way. Now I need you to sit in your chair and fly this ship."
The Jedi pointed to the pilot's seat, but Car'das found himself looking towards the copilot's chair.
"Laren... by the Force... what did you do to Laren? And where's Vel?" He said, as he rushed over to the copilot's chair. His copilot was slumped in the seat, still breathing, but her eyes were unfocused, and drool was pooling at the side of her mouth.
"I took what I needed. Sit."
Jorj felt the iron hand of the Jedi's Force drag him to the pilot's chair.
"He's masking his presence in the Force," Ahsoka said. "But he's still here in the spaceport, I can feel it."
"I feel it as well, but there is an anticipation there. He wants to escape." The Caamasi Jedi put a hand on Ahsoka's shoulder. "Relax. Open your mind. We will find him."
The com panel on the Whipclaw came to life, and faint blue man in a Navy uniform appeared in hologram form a few centimeters above the panel.
"Whipclaw, this is Captain Argent of the Dreadnought Vindicator from the Sluis Van shipyards. We are responding to the distress call sent by the Bpfasshi government, and we just dropped out of hyperspace in orbit around the planet. Our logs show that you are in the employ of the Imperial Inquisition, do you have a location on the Jedi fugitives?"
"I've got this, stay back out of the holocamera range" Ahsoka said, pulling her mask back down over her face hitting the transmit button. "Vindicator, this is Riella Masso. All but one of the Jedi has been taken care of, we believe the last is hiding somewhere in this spaceport. The Sluissi couldn't spare more than one Dreadnought? I thought the war was over."
Ahsoka as a bit surprised to see a non-Sluissi commanding the ship. Then again, Sluis Van had been on the side of the Confederacy during the war, so it would make sense for the Empire to come in and take over the shipyards as quickly as possible.
"The rest of the response team is en route, the Vindicator has been equipped with a new hyperdrive that allowed us to get here sooner than we would have otherwise been. Our records show that the Whipclaw is registered to a Koros L'Larr."
"I'm subcontracting. Best Jedi hunter you'll find off of Concordia."
"That's a tall order," the Imperial said. "I'm sending down a squad of V-wings to help patrol the area, and several LAAT carriers. Is the other ship circling the spaceport with you?"
Ahsoka shrugged. "He's not with me, but he's hunting for the Jedi. I wouldn't presume to give you orders, but I don't think he's worth picking a fight with."
The small blue hologram disappeared from the console, and Ahsoka's sensor panel beeped.
"Looks like he was already ready to launch. Efficient, but I don't like him."
The older Jedi in the navigator's seat chuckled. "Why is that?"
"Stays on the bridge and gives orders. Doesn't mingle. You can tell. All the troopers call them "Larties" because when a Navy officer with a Coruscanti or Caridan accent says LAAT it sounds like Larty. Eventually most officers who mingle with the troops pick up the nicknames for equipment. Anyway, looks like three Larties and a dozen V-wings. Now... let's see if we can find the clone before they get here."
She closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. The calming presence of Master It'kla behind her helped her focus. There was definitely something causing ripples in the Force here.
"I think I feel... it's like the clone is somehow important. He's not making anything happen, but it feels like his destiny is... important." She opened her eyes. "And I think he's over that way."
"I concur. The clone appears to be at the center of a vergence in the Force."
Ahsoka turned the Whipclaw towards the side of the spaceport where she sensed the clone. Before she reached it, the spaceport was rocked by an explosion. The side wall of one of the hangars was blown off, and a Barloz-class freighter shot out of it. Both the Whipclaw and the Slave I turned to follow it.
"That's him!" Ahsoka yelped as she slapped at the com to her right. "The Jedi is on the freighter! V-wing pilots, I recommend you form a defensive screen, don't let him get out of the gravity well!"
Boba Fett heard the unencrypted message from the Whipclaw and powered his weapons. "My bomb didn't kill you... the Empire couldn't kill you... this is it, Windu. You're finally dead."
The rapid-fire blaster cannons just below the cockpit opened fire, although at extreme range they wouldn't do much more than nibble away at the freighter's shields. Fett pulled down a rangefinder from the upper console and watched as the sensors narrowed in on the freighter's sensor profile. At the bottom of the ship, just below the heavy turbolaser cannons, a pair of torpedo tubes opened up.
As soon as the rangefinder gave its signal, Boba pulled the trigger. A pair of torpedoes lanced out towards the freighter, and now that he was within close enough range, Boba switched power from the rapid fire blasters to the heavy turbolasers at the bottom of the ship. Two heavy gouts of polarized plasma from the cannons raced past the torpedoes and splashed against the freighter's shields.
"Open the bay doors," the Jedi said, his Force grip around Jorj's shoulder squeezing painfully. "Now."
Jorj flipped the safety switch, then slapped the emergency hold vent button three times. The ship's cargo ramps opened, several heavy crates tumbled out.
"It's not like we could sell those anyway," he said. "Ever since the war ended, nobody's buying military grade power converters. They've just been taking up space."
"He's good," Ahsoka said, after seeing both torpedoes hit the falling crates and detonate early. "Vindicator, do you have a clear shot with your turbolasers?"
"Negative, we have a problem. It's got a high-level Imperial code in its transponder, our computer systems are refusing to target it. There's no way a Jedi could know that code, it didn't come into commission until after Order 66 was called."
"Jedi have a way of doing the impossible. When they get in range, try to target the ship manually. You probably won't have much luck... but that's better than nothing."
She switched off the com and said, "I think its time we follow that other guy's lead. Arming missiles."
As she was targeting the fleeing freighter, she could see a much larger dot on the horizon heading to intercept the freighter. A few flashes of light looked like long-range turbolaser blasts, but the freighter appeared to be hauling away at a much faster speed than any other Barloz-class freighter she'd ever seen.
When the target was confirmed, she launched a pair of missiles. They corkscrewed, flying in tandem.
And then the ship leapt forward, disappearing out of sight in a split second. The cannon fire from the dreadnought stopped, and the dot on the sensors that had been the freighter disappeared.
"He got away. He must have overloaded the hyperdrive just to jump when he was still in the outside edge of the gravity field. That's... that's just nuts!" Ahsoka slumped in the pilot's seat. "Those clones really are crazy."