Quinlan, lying on the ground beneath the Havoc Marauder, listened carefully as Hunter conversed with Cad Bane. He didn't dare interfere at this point – there was no way Bane wouldn't recognize him. Why couldn't Vythia have sent any of the others she'd hired. . .?

And that stupid little droid was here – the one that had so calmly snatched his lightsaber back on Nal Hutta. He had a score to settle with Todo, that was for sure.

He tuned back into the conversation just as Hunter spoke in a threatening voice. "We don't take kindly to being spied on."

"Don't know anyone who does," Bane muttered. "Missing someone, aren't you?"

Quinlan rose to one knee, ready to lunge out from beneath the center of the ship, before realizing that Bane was referring to Wrecker.

"What's that to you?" Hunter retorted, and Quinlan heard him shift his weight. "Now get out of here before I pin that hat to your skull."

"Not very friendly, are they, Todo?" Bane asked.

The droid replied in a half-surprised, half-offended voice. "I should say not."

A feeling of a threat was building in the Force, but Quinlan couldn't tell whether it was from Bane or from Hunter, who said, "Cross, get ready to shoot that thing."

Cad Bane chuckled briefly. "No worries. We're leaving. Just don't be surprised if you see us around."

Just my luck. I'm going to have to avoid him the whole mission, aren't I? Quinlan crawled a couple of feet towards the edge of the ship, using his elbows to keep from smacking his head against the ship.

Bane spoke again. "Now, Todo!"

Something clinked against the ground, and Quinlan dropped flat and rolled away.

The grenade went off, sending a shockwave of gold-blue electricity streaking across the platform. Quinlan winced internally when it caught Hunter and Crosshair. Ow, that had to have hurt.

Then someone bumped against his elbow, and he twisted around awkwardly. Tech, lying flat on his stomach with one pistol drawn, cast him a sideways look and whispered, "I believe he wants to search the ship."

"I believe you're right," Quinlan muttered back. "Somehow, we've got to stop him before he finds the urn."

"Yes." Tech propped himself up on his elbows. "I'll distract him while you get the artifact."

Quinlan shook his head, trying to keep Bane's boots in sight as the Duros paced slowly around the edge of the platform – probably looking for Wrecker and Tech. "Contact Wrecker first."

Tech set down his pistol, tapped his comm, and whispered, "Wrecker, come in. Cad Bane just took out Hunter and Crosshair with an electromagnetic pulse grenade."

"Hunter? Oh, that's bad!" Despite sounding angry, Wrecker managed to keep his voice down.

Quinlan leaned closer to Tech. "Wrecker, we need you to distract him before he boards the Marauder. Can you do that?"

"I'll do more than that!" Wrecker shouted, and Tech hastily covered the speaker with one hand. "I'm on the lift already."

"Understood." Tech snatched up his pistol and crawled forward, and Quinlan grabbed at his ankle to stop him.

Tech looked back, disgruntled. "Bane will find you if I don't move. He knows I'm around somewhere."

"He's behind the ship now," Quinlan admitted, releasing him. "Just – watch it."

Tech nodded, scrambled out, and ran for the stairs.

"Oh!" yelled the little droid. "There he is!"

Quinlan gritted his teeth, waiting as Bane rushed back around the ship, then rolled out on the opposite side and sprang to his feet.

The door of the ship hissed shut, and Quinlan's commlink beeped. He jumped to the top of the ship and lay flat before accepting the transmission. "Tech?"

"It was somewhat close, but I am inside, and Bane is not. I've sealed the door."

"Good," Quinlan answered in a low voice. "Get that artifact hidden."

"I'm on it."

Quinlan watched the droid hovering around the platform, its rectangular head turning this way and that. If it looked up – or flew higher . . .

But it didn't.

Cad Bane strolled past, only the edge of his hat visible from Quinlan's position, and stared at the doorway for a moment. "No sign of the other one. Todo, get us inside."

With a mechanical sigh quite unusual for a droid, Todo hovered towards the doorway, disappearing from view. "What is so special about this ship? Why don't you just blow it up?"

"Don't be silly." Bane constantly sounded as though he were swallowing his own words as he spoke. "We're here to see what they got from Grakkus, nothing else. Keep an eye out for the big one. He could be a problem."

The droid huffed. "How can I possibly 'keep an eye out' and get through this door at the same time? Sometimes you seem to think that I can do everything."

"Yeah," drawled Bane. "Everything except shut up."

"Well! Really!"

The sound of a laser cutter drowned out Todo's grumbling, and Quinlan rose cautiously to one knee, judging the distance. Maybe he could knock Bane out without being seen, and maybe he couldn't. But if Bane got inside . . . Hurry up, Wrecker.

A faint scraping of plastoid on duracrete sounded in front of him as one of the fallen commandos shifted, but he couldn't tell whether either of them was conscious.

"I'm nearly through," the droid remarked.

"About time, too," Cad Bane said.

Quinlan dropped back to his stomach and pressed his comm five times. He had no idea if Tech would interpret that as a danger signal or not, but he didn't dare risk speaking right now.

"Bane!" yelled a gruff voice, and Wrecker appeared at the far end of the landing platform. He must have seen Quinlan, but he gave no sign. One point for Wrecker.

Cad Bane moved away from the ship, unholstering one pistol. "I wondered where you'd got to. Just stay still, and no one gets hurt."

Wrecker clipped his gun to his belt and folded his arms.

Quinlan watched, carefully edging backwards as Bane moved forwards. What's he doing. . .?

The droid hovered over to join the Duros. "I have broken through the door seal."

"Good. I'll watch this guy while you search the ship."

"But – I can't! The other bounty hunter is still inside!"

"Shut up, Todo. I'm running this operation."

Todo hovered back to the entrance, somehow managing to put his robotic nose in the air. "No need to remind me of that."

Okay, Vos, Quinlan thought, grabbing his pistol. I think it's time to risk the consequences of being seen. . .

"Hurry it up, Todo," Bane ordered.

Wrecker still hadn't moved – he seemed to be waiting for something.

The door hissed open, and Todo said, "Oh!"

Tech rushed halfway down the boarding ramp, then jumped and landed on the platform in a safety roll that brought him up behind Bane, who spun to face him. Tech's eyes were narrowed behind his goggles as he ran sideways, firing shot after shot.

Wrecker charged.

Cad Bane jumped aside and soared into the air, his pistols releasing a steady volley of stun rounds. Two shots struck Wrecker, but he shrugged them off.

Quinlan rolled off the roof of the ship, landing on the opposite side. This game of hide-and-seek was getting old really fast. He peered around the edge, ready to intervene whenever necessary.

As Wrecker made another grab for Bane, Tech spun suddenly and ran back towards the ship. Catching Quinlan's gaze, he ducked around the side of the ship and reached into his pack. "I've got it here," he said hastily.

Quinlan grabbed the artifact and glanced around. The lightsabers were still in Hunter's pack, and for now . . . well, one of the commandos' packs would be the safest place to keep this. Unless Bane decided to search them. He probably would, if he got the chance.

"Todo, get out here!" yelled Bane.

Tech rushed back into the fight and attacked Bane. Wrecker stepped back toward the boarding ramp.

Quinlan was quite pleased when he heard a sudden clang of metal against metal. It sounded like Todo had gotten himself smacked into the side of the ship.

Dropping to his hands and knees, the Jedi slipped beneath the ship and crawled towards Hunter and Crosshair. Time to get those lightsabers out of Bane's reach.

The sniper was closest, so Quinlan, keeping half his attention on the battle, grabbed his arm and shook him. "Crosshair, I kind of need some help here. Wake up. Hey, you alive or what?"

He glanced at Hunter, who was motionless. Bane's grenade must have been pretty powerful to take the two commandos down like that.

"Crosshair, wake up. No rush, take as long as you want . . ." Quinlan glanced at what little he could see of the fight going on to his right. "As long as it's, you know, in the next thirty seconds or so."

Wrecker seemed to tire of shooting at Bane, because he switched his rifle attachment and sent heavy lasers streaking at Bane's ship.

"Or ten seconds," Quinlan went on, watching as Bane fired in Wrecker's general direction. Crosshair shifted, and Quinlan pulled his attention back to the commando. The annoying stream of words worked every time, though Obi-Wan declaimed it as immature.

Quinlan smirked and continued. "Hey, sniper guy. If you wake up, I promise I won't slice your rifle in half, or shoot it. . . or kick it over the edge of the platform. . ." Okay, yeah, that's getting kind of lame.

"Change of plans, Todo," barked Cad Bane, from somewhere to the far right of the platform. "Forget about stun lasers."

Todo landed next to Wrecker. At first Quinlan thought that the droid had an overloaded servo or something, because white mist was trickling out from his neck. Too late, he realized that it was actually a powerful knockout gas.

Wrecker dropped to his knees, looking dizzily around. Tech, who was some distance away, collapsed suddenly. That stuff must be more powerful than the average knockout grenade.

But although Crosshair was closer to Todo than Tech was, he seemed to be more awake than before. . . and Quinlan himself was a little dizzy, but nowhere near being knocked unconscious. It didn't add up. For the moment, though, the best way to get rid of Bane was to let him finish his mission. Particularly since there was nothing for him to find on the ship anymore.

Wrecker fell flat, and Todo said, "Finally!"

At the same moment, Crosshair shifted. Mentally echoing Todo's remark, Quinlan grabbed at his wrist. "Quiet," he whispered, keeping an eye on Bane. "Don't move yet."

Todo was talking again. "I certainly hope that your getting onboard was worth all this trouble. It would have been much simpler to shoot them."

"Quiet," muttered Bane. "We were sent here to search their ship, not kill them. Now get back to our ship. Move it to the apartment and wait there."

"I'm not your pilot," huffed the droid, but he floated back to the opposite platform all the same.

Bane's footsteps sounded on the boarding ramp and faded inside.

As Crosshair got stiffly to his knees, Quinlan crawled out to join him. "Everyone's okay, just unconscious," he said. "Quick, give me Hunter's pack. We can't let Bane find the lightsabers."

Crosshair obeyed silently, scanning the platform as he did so. "Now what?"

"We hope he leaves without causing grief," said Quinlan as Bane's fighter took off, rotated away from them, and disappeared. He grabbed the lightsabers from the pack, balancing them precariously in the crook of one arm.

"Why?" Crosshair drew his pistol. "I could just disable those jetpacks of his while he's midflight."

"No." Quinlan's mental focus was on Bane's presence inside the ship. He was moving around, coming slowly back towards the entrance. "Here – put Hunter's pack back."

Crosshair obeyed dubiously. "No?"

"He's not a threat to us right now. Just play dead until he leaves."

"Pretend to be unconscious?" he asked. "While Bane still has weapons?"

"Uh . . . basically."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

Yeah, me too. Quinlan waited until Crosshair was back in his previous position, then ran around the back of the ship just as Bane exited the front.

The Duros was speaking into his comm. "I'll check their packs, but then I'm getting out of here. . . Yeah, I know, but you can ask them yourself."

Quinlan raised an eyebrow and set down the artifact and the lightsabers, careful not let them clatter against the duracrete. I'll bet he's talking to Vythia.

As he searched the commandos, Bane continued to speak. "No, the leader's got nothing. One minute. . . The sniper's got nothing."

Quinlan held his breath so as to listen better, straining to hear the voice on the other end of the comm. All he could hear was a very faint murmur, but the voice was definitely female.

"Big guy's clear . . . So's the little one. Guess their raid on Grakkus' place wasn't so successful after all."

The nearly inaudible voice murmured something, and Bane replied. "Okay, fine. I'm headed back now."

A soft click announced the end of his call. Quinlan held his breath and crawled slowly back around to the front.

Bane paused at the edge of the platform for a moment, then activated his jetpacks and soared across the gap between the two platforms. He mounted his speeder, still turned away from the Havoc Marauder. Quinlan was just about to release his breath when, to his shock, Tech sprang up and ran towards Bane.

Okay, guess he was faking it, Quinlan thought as he activated his comm. "Tech, I seriously hope you're not planning to jump across that gap."

Tech dropped flat, grabbed the edge of the platform, swung around, and hung by his elbows and one knee over the hundred-meter drop just as Bane's speeder roared to life.

Quinlan checked that his commlink was transmitting, then settled for shouting after Tech instead. "Hey! What are you doing?"

Tech looked up and yelled, "You take care of the others! I'm going after Bane!"

"He's on a speeder," Crosshair snapped, coming suddenly to life. "How can you?"

"How else?" Tech called almost cheerfully as he swung down out of sight. "On another speeder!"

Quinlan grimaced as he remembered the speeder he'd parked on the landing pad's support. Seriously?!

Cad Bane swerved in the opposite direction and gunned his speeder off the platform, not seeming to notice that Tech and Crosshair were no longer 'unconscious'.

"Tech!" Quinlan called. "I locked it with special codes –"

The sound of a second engine starting up cut him off.

Quinlan and Crosshair stared at each other; then they both rushed to the edge, dropped flat, and looked beneath the platform.

Tech, balancing easily on the support beam, swung onto the running speeder.

"Tech!" Crosshair said. "You can't –"

"I'll be fine!" Tech slammed down the accelerator and leaned hard to the left, jolting the speeder from its precarious perch. The speederbike shot into midair and dropped nearly twelve meters before Tech could get it back under control. Crouching low over the handlebars, he shot off after Bane.

Quinlan got slowly to his feet, staring after Tech as he disappeared into the streams of traffic. "Okay, why . . .?"

Crosshair removed his helmet and gave him a deadly look, as though Tech's actions were somehow Quinlan's fault. "Why did you leave that speeder there?"

"I thought I might need it later?" Quinlan rubbed his head. "I swear I didn't know he even knew about it."

"We all knew about it." Crosshair didn't bother to explain, instead heading back toward Hunter.

"Should I – go after him?" Quinlan wondered why he was asking, because he had no way of going after him. He supposed he could always borrow another speeder. . .

"No," Crosshair said. "He knows what he's doing."

"That's not what you thought a moment ago," Quinlan muttered.

Crosshair ignored his comment in favor of removing Hunter's helmet. The commando sergeant was still unconscious, a rather odd shade of white – which made his tattoo look even weirder – and his nose was bleeding heavily.

Quinlan grabbed Hunter's right arm while Crosshair got his left, and they pulled him into a sitting position.

"He doesn't look so good," Quinlan observed.

Crosshair eyed Quinlan as though he had just said something incredibly stupid.

"What?"

"Electromagnetic pulses affect him badly." Crosshair got to his feet, dragging Hunter with him.

"Well I never assumed they were pleasant," Quinlan said.

Crosshair snorted. "Worse than most people."

Oh, right. . . Tech said something about that, didn't he? Quinlan helped position Hunter's arm across Crosshair's shoulders so the sniper could bring him back to the ship.

Three commandos down, one to go. Or – no. Three up, one to go. Grabbing Hunter's helmet, Quinlan moved towards Wrecker, who was already stirring. Probably just as well. He doubted he'd be able to move Wrecker on his own.

"What happened?" Wrecker groused, somehow managing to get to his feet without help. "Where's Bane?"

Quinlan tossed him the helmet and went to retrieve the artifacts from their 'hiding place' in plain sight on the duracrete. "He left. Hunter and Crosshair are on the ship."

"Oh, good." Wrecker turned on his heel, observing the platform. Apparently, residual dizziness wasn't a problem with this guy. "What about Tech?"

Somehow, I really don't want to answer that question. "Um," Quinlan said. "Actually, he's following Bane. . ."

"WHAT?"

Tech glanced over one shoulder at the oncoming traffic and kicked the left accelerator, swerving up into a higher lane. Cad Bane was approximately two hundred meters ahead of him, and Quinlan Vos' speeder was old and not particularly fast.

He would simply have to make up for the lack of speed with a few well-timed tricks.

Keeping one hand on the steering apparatus, he took his datapad out. It was already locked on the ID of Bane's starfighter – all he had to do was pull up the map of Nal Hutta . . .

A transport rushed by him, the high-pitched whine of its engine filling his ears. His speeder skewed crazily, caught in the backwash, and Tech nearly dropped the datapad.

Gripping the speeder's saddle with both knees and his datapad with one hand, he threw his weight to the right. When the vehicle steadied, Tech aimed a quick glare at the now-distant transport and returned to his task. "That was hardly helpful."

Bane's speeder was gaining distance. Adjusting his visor, Tech overlaid his vision with faint red lines that denoted a map of the area he was in. The datapad was already linked remotely to his helmet, so it was a matter of moments to send the ID of Bane's starfighter and pinpoint his location.

Now, he could see exactly how far away he was from it, which meant that he could locate a shorter route to Bane's apartment.

Flicking his gaze between the traffic and his datapad, Tech pointed the nose of his speeder up. Maintaining a heading of one hundred and ninety degrees should allow him to gain altitude without sacrificing speed.

Forty meters below him, Bane was turning into a much narrower street. It appeared that Bane was now at a disadvantage – he had been forced to slow down, due to the higher concentration of traffic. And the airway was particularly long. Excellent. I can gain perhaps fifteen seconds from that, but I'll need a bit more. . .

He could gain that time only by gaining speed.

Tech clipped the datapad to his belt, took one last look at the map, and flipped his visor up. He would definitely be needing both hands and all his attention for this. Casting one last look at the traffic behind him, he floored the accelerator and leaned forward, tilting the speederbike down.

The rooftops of the lower buildings rushed towards him, growing larger with each passing second. Tech squinted, visualizing the map. Five more seconds . . . two, one –

He flung all his strength against the handles, nearly flipping the speeder as he forced it out of its headlong dive. For an exhilarating moment, he was sideways, driving along the wall as though it were a road. Then he was out in the open, and Bane was far behind, which was –

His helmet speaker buzzed. "TECH!" Wrecker yelled angrily.

Tech shook his head against the ringing in his ears. "Wrecker!"

"What do you think you're doing? Hunter is gonna be so mad!"

"Hunter is unconscious," replied Tech, swerving around an airbus. "Therefore, he does not currently have the ability to be 'mad'."
"Tech, you little –"

Tech rolled his eyes. "I am busy, Wrecker."

"Oh, yeah? Doing what?"

"A simple retrieval mission."

"Retrieval?"

"Yes." Tech eased up on the accelerator, glancing quickly all around. It should be in this area, right about . . . there.

Bane's starfighter was parked on a private landing pad, approximately fifty feet below him.

"Tech, what are you doing?" Wrecker sounded suspicious.

"I already told you. A retrieval mission." Tech disconnected his comm, then flew down in a tight loop, cutting speed abruptly as he neared the landing pad. He used the last of the speeder's momentum to coast around the starfighter, pointing the speeder's nose back towards the airway. Bane would see it, but there was nothing he could do about that.

Assuming his calculations were correct, he now had approximately thirty seconds before the Duros showed up. Tech ran across to the starfighter and busied himself by dropping a couple of magnetic charges into the fuel valve.

At ten seconds, he activated the charges, ducked behind the starfighter, took a linked detonator in one hand, and waited.

Twelve seconds later, he realized that he'd overestimated Bane's ETA a bit. Not by too much, hopefully. He was more than aware that he was exposed on this platform, and that he had no one watching his back.

Cad Bane's speeder seemed to appear out of nowhere, the rumbling of its engine loud as it drew to a halt opposite Tech's position.

"Hmm," Bane muttered to himself. "Looks like we have a visitor. Todo!"

Tech peeked over the front of the starfighter to see that Bane was examining the speeder Tech had used. Then the Duros turned toward the apartment door, one hand resting on his gun. "Todo?"

Tech leaned down and gently rolled the electronic charge across the platform.

It made very little noise, but Bane heard it. "What the –?"

With a satisfied smirk, Tech pressed the detonator.

Cad Bane crumpled under the onslaught of electricity, and one of his jetpacks shorted out. As the Duros snarled, Tech hurried over and removed the lightsaber, handcuffs, and small grenades from Bane's belt.

Cad Bane struggled to reach his guns, but Tech snatched them and threw them toward the far end of the platform. Moving efficiently, he cuffed the bounty hunter's wrists and ankles, then dragged him a short distance away from the starfighter.

Bane resisted, but his coordination and strength were greatly diminished. Electrical shocks did tend to do that to people.

As the bounty hunter slurred threats in Tech's general direction, Tech hopped onto his speeder and took off, heading back for the airfield and landing platform nine.

He paused, a few hundred meters away, to watch with satisfaction as his magnetic charges went off, completely disabling all the electronic systems in the starfighter. Bane would have to put a good amount of work in before he could hope to fly that again.

Now, to get back to the Havoc Marauder. . . Tech realized his comms were still off and winced. Hunter would definitely be furious.