Chapter 6

"Maybe you'd better fill me in on this one," Adi said drily. "After all, I'm the pilot."

"This ship has a double-reinforced cargo hold," Qui-Gon said. "The work was done in order to protect a shipment of vertex on its last mission. So if we were hit there, it would cause minimal damage. We could make it look worse. We could trick him into thinking the ship was failing. Then we eject the salon pod. He knows that salon pods on these cruisers are capable of long space flights." Qui-Gon leveled his gaze at Adi. "Can you do it?"

She would know what he was asking. Adi could be high-handed at times. She could be dismissive of other ideas than her own. But they had worked together often enough to be able to put their minds in sync when they needed to.

"Yes."

Qui-Gon turned. "Obi-Wan, Siri, Taly, get all the soft material you can and bring them to the cockpit. Flotation devices, roll-up sleep couches, bedding, pillows, cushions. Fast."

Obi-Wan, Siri, and Taly dashed out of the cockpit. The Republic cruiser was built as a diplomatic ship. There were plenty of cabins to raid. Within minutes, the cockpit had filled up with soft bedding. Qui-Gon directed the three to place it around the walls and hard surfaces as carefully as they could.

"We're going to have take a missile blow," he told the others. "Brace yourself."

Adi maneuvered the ship so that the blow would fall on the cargo hold. It would take perfect timing and a lot of guesswork. She had to make the bounty hunter think that he had outmaneuvered them and struck the death blow.

The ship screamed through space, twisting like a corkscrew. The Force filled the cabin as Adi concentrated, beads of perspiration on her high forehead. They saw the flash as the laser cannon boomed. They had less than a split-second to prepare.

The blast shook the ship and blew them like durasheets through the cabin. They bounced off the cushions and mattresses. Qui-Gon felt helpless as his wrist slammed against the edge of the console. He pulled in the Force to give him stability and balance. Adi crawled to the pilot chair.

"I didn't expect to do quite this good a job," she muttered, gripping the controls.

"Jettison some smoke," Qui-Gon said.

Adi put the ship into a death spiral. She released the salon pod. They were close to a planet now, twisting down toward it.

Qui-Gon had his eyes on the radar. "He's not chasing the pod. Not yet."

Adi looked at him worriedly. "He's waiting for us to flame out or crash."

Qui-Gon nodded. "So let's crash."

Adi gripped the controls. Siri strapped Taly down and belted down cushions around him. She and Obi-Wan covered themselves as best they could.

The ship was screaming now, belching smoke. But Adi still had control. She mimicked a dying ship, narrowing the circles until Qui-Gon had to close his eyes against the dizziness he felt. He opened them once to see the surface of the planet looming. He closed them again quickly.

"Here we go!" Adi shouted.

He never knew how she did it. The grace and precision of it were amazing. She was able to pull up slightly at the last minute, enough for the ship to shudder into a modified crash landing instead of slamming into the planet's surface. But from the upper atmosphere, it would look like a crash. She jettisoned the fuel early so that it sent up a fireball. The smoke would cover their escape.

Qui-Gon took out his lightsaber and cut a hole through the wall. Obi-Wan joined him, then Siri and Adi. Taly stood back, his eyes huge with shock.

Qui-Gon picked up Taly and jumped out the hole after the others. They took shelter behind some rocks as the ship exploded.

"Now what?" Siri asked.

"Let's start with the basics," Qui-Gon said. "I'd say we need to locate new transportation."

Taly still wore an expression of shock. "Don't you Jedi take a minute to recover?"

"He took off after the pod, but we should still take precautions," Adi said. "I think Taly should remain in hiding with Siri and Obi-Wan. We don't want to leave a trail. We know there is more than one bounty hunter involved."

"Good point," Qui-Gon said.

They walked toward town. The road was dusty and deserted, winding through a rocky canyon. Halfway there, Adi suddenly stopped. She leaned over and pressed her hand against the ground.

"There's water close to here," she said. "Follow me."

She took off through the rocks. They followed, Taly sometimes slipping and helped by Siri. Adi led them up a stony ridge and then down again. The air smelled fresher. Around a large boulder was a small, bubbling spring.

"A water source if you need it," she said. She glanced around. "There are caves around us. I can feel them."

She walked to a cleft in the rocks. Qui-Gon never would have noticed it. He would have thought it was a shadow. Adi melted inside and they saw only her hand beckon them.

It was a cave, small and snug. Although the sand was cool and damp, farther into the cave it was dry.

"A perfect hiding place," Adi said. "Invisible from the air. Easy to exit and close to town." She slipped off her survival pack. "We'll be back for you as soon as we locate transport. You'll be comfortable here."

Siri looked around the cave dubiously. "If you say so." Qui-Gon couldn't help smiling at Siri. "We'll return soon," he promised.

Qui-Gon and Adi left the cave and continued on the road to the city of Settlement 5. The city had no outskirts. It simply rose in the middle of a convergence of roads. There seemed to be no green spaces, no culture centers or amusements, just businesses and homes, all built on a grid of streets and lanes.

The city was more like an overgrown village than a sophisticated center. Qui-Gon and Adi walked through the streets, their hoods up, trying to blend in. It wasn't hard. They were taller than the average Quadrant Seven, but that wasn't a problem. All the Quadrant Sevens wore practical and neutral-colored robes, just as the Jedi did. Most of them walked with their hoods over their faces. Qui-Gon felt anonymous in the crowd, and he soon realized why.

"They're all trying to blend in," he murmured to Adi.

"Even if they recognize us as outlanders, they won't show it."

Usually in a main city of a world in the Core or Mid-Rim, there were plenty of opportunities to buy or rent speeders, and often dealers in spaceworthy cruisers clustered around the landing platforms of the city. But there was a strange absence of such dealers on this planet. It took Adi and Qui-Gon some time to find a seller of speeders tucked away down a narrow lane off a secondary road.