Jusik's voice was almost a chuckle. “Fascinating,” he said. “I'm waiting at the delivery platform. A taxi is just what she needs right now.” Sev and Fi looked at each other. They could hear Jusik, but the taxi wasn't visible even when they stood back and glanced up discreetly at the roofline. Then they heard his voice, utterly level, utterly calm—utterly worrying. “Yeah? Yeah, I am, lady … where d'you want to go? I've got a booking, but …”
“Sev, tell me he isn't doing what I think he is.”
“He's doing it.”
“He's nuts.”
Sev lowered his voice to a whisper in the comlink. “Bardan, if we lift her now, we'll blow this op. Don't overplay it.”
“Okay, lady, but the spaceport isn't my regular run, so that'll be extra.”
There was the sound of someone getting into the taxi and a woman's voice. “Yes, just drop me off at the domestic terminal, please.”
Fi wondered for a moment if ordinary people had shared thoughts like the one he knew Sev was sharing with him. They'd been trained to think the same way, the soldier's way. Where was Jusik going with this? If he dropped her off like a normal taxi, they'd lose her in the terminal anyway. He couldn't follow her in there and check where she went without blowing his cover. And if he didn't drop her off …
Sev was staring past Fi. “Lizard on your six,” he said quietly.
Fi turned very, very slowly and stopped when he caught the Falleen male in his peripheral vision at the point where the plaza funneled into a spiral ramp down to another level. He was searching. So the woman hadn't caught up with him when he expected, and he was looking for her. And that meant she had no comlink, or she'd have used it.
“Now he's going to be bad news. He's carrying some serious cannon. Look at the line of his jacket.”
Jusik's voice was a quiet descant to Fi's pulse pounding in his head. “Oh, fierfek. That's great. Being rerouted again … this is going to cost, lady … another detour …”
“He's way too smart for his own good.” Sev looked exasperated. “Bardan, are you doing what I think you're doing? Are you heading back our way?”
“I pay good license money not to have to use automated lanes,” said Jusik's voice in their ears. He really didn't sound at all like a nice Jedi Temple boy now. And then I still get diverted. What do we pay our taxes for?”
“I'll take that as a yes.”
The Falleen moved off, pausing occasionally to look around, and ambled slowly down the ramp. Fi and Sev leaned on the edge of the parapet like any tourist might to take in the view below.
Fi dropped his voice. “He's calling someone.” The Falleen had the back of his hand raised to his mouth. Oh, for a helmet comlink. Fi might have been able to pick up the frequency. “Is it her? Or backup?”
“We could call this in and get Niner and Scorch to pick him up.”
“And then we drag another team off station. No, let's see this through.”
Sev sat down on a bench, looking suitably disoriented. “Bardan, where are you?”
“Let me try this shortcut, lady … hey, who you calling? You making a complaint about fares already?”
“I bet she's calling Lounge Lizard. Great.”
“Yeah, and now that our driver's got a very dodgy passenger, has he thought what we're going to do with her?”
“Same as we did with Orjul and the Nikto,” Sev said, getting up to walk across to the taxi platform at the end of the plaza. They had to get in fast when Jusik appeared and opened that hatch. Fi had visions of the potential grief that would be unleashed if a passenger was screaming her head off when the taxi hatch opened in a very public place.
“Land at ninety degrees, Bardan. Sev will access via the port hatch and I'll go in the other, and we'll pin her down.”
“Yeah, I think Fi can manage to subdue a civilian,” Sev said.
“Remind me to show you my unfunny side later, ner vod.”
“Skirata's going to kill us for this—”
“Better get it right then,” Fi said.
“Here he comes …”
“Steady, Bardan.”
“Too fast.”
“He's a Jedi. There's no such thing as too fast.”
The battered taxi, its anti-surveillance gauze now showing a human driver that wasn't Jusik, dropped onto the platform scattering dust and grit. The two commandos ran to their respective sides.
Jusik's voice filled their heads now. “Hatches in three … two … one!”
They threw themselves in. The hatches snapped shut so fast that Fi felt his pant leg snag in the seal but he was flat on top of a squealing, struggling woman and then she went quiet because Sev clamped his hand over her mouth.
“You waiting for a tip?” said Fi.
The taxi lifted in a straight vertical and nearly shaved the paintwork off another cab trying to drop off passengers. It was just as well that Enacca had done something creative about the identity transponder.
“Fi, I don't suppose you brought any restraints?”
“No, but this usually works.” Fi freed his right arm and put his blaster to Jiss's head. “Ma'am, shut up and stop struggling. I have no problem shooting women.”
No, he didn't. Enemies were enemies. Females were soldiers, too.
Jusik took the taxi high into what appeared to be a commuter lane and shot off in a complex loop that first took them away from Qibbu's and relative safety, and then dropped down between lanes where the layers of traffic overhead gave some protection against visual surveillance.
“We've been tagged,” Jusik said. He shut his eyes, far too long for Fi's comfort. It was the first time he'd seen the Jedi fly with his eyes closed, and the fact that the good ones could do that didn't reassure the simple animal part of him that said it shouldn't be possible. “Yes, we're being followed.”
Fi wanted to ask how he knew but Jiss had no reason to know Jusik was a Jedi, and the less she knew, the easier it would be to process her, as Skirata put it.
“You can evade them, right?”
“About as well as anyone can.”
“Any idea who they are?”
“None, other than they're very persistent, and if it's CSF, it's an unmarked vessel.”
“You can sense all that information?”
He opened his eyes again. “Yes, because they're only two or three speeders behind us and I can see them in the mirror.”
Sev looked at Fi with the unspoken count of one, two, three. Sev released his grip on Jiss as Fi clamped his arm tight around her neck, blaster pressed so hard into her temple that the muzzle was ringed with a little patch of white bloodless skin. He could feel her heart pounding through her back against his chest even through the thin sheet of body armor under his tunic. He wondered for a moment if it was his own frantic heartbeat.
Sev reached under the rear seat for his DC-17 and took out the grenade attachment. “Okay, it lacks finesse, but we're late for lunch. And if they track us, we're finished.”
“Here? In daylight, in traffic?” Jusik said.
“Not yet.” Sev tried to aim his Deece and snapped on the grenade launcher. “Open the rear screen a crack. Can you hold steady?”
“You wanted me to outrun them—”
“Can't. We've got to drop them.”
Jusik looked in the rearview. “In a skylane? You haven't got a clear shot and the debris will—”
“Me sniper, you pilot. Understand the difference?”
Jusik's grip on the steering vane tightened. “Too many vessels and too much debris. Let's head for somewhere less crowded.”
“Maybe Qiilura?” Fi said.
“Hold on tight.”
Jusik dropped the taxi like a stone and plummeted ten, then fifteen, then twenty levels to the lower skylanes, slipping in between two transports and then jumping between horizontal lanes.
“Still there,” said Sev. “Three vehicles behind.”
“Have they alerted anyone?”
“I can't sense anything.” Jusik kept shaking his head as if trying to clear it. “They might not want to risk using comlinks.”