Outbound Flight

Qe

"Do not play the fool," Progga warned, his voice going an octave deeper. "I know your sort. You do not simply runfrom something, but run ratherto something else. This is the lone star system along this vector; and behold, you are here. What could you have run to but a secret base and treasure hoard?"

Qe

"A hundred kilometers off the starboard bow," Car'das told him, his hands shaking as he ran a full scan on the distant Hutt ship. "And he's coming up fast."

"Maris?"

"Whatever you did to shut down the hyperdrive, you did a great job," she said tightly. "It's completely locked. We've still got the backup, but if we try to run and he tracks us again-"

"And he will," Qe

"Enough!" the Hutt bellowed. "Lead me to this base. Now."

"There isn't any base," Qe

A light flashed on Car'das's proximity sensor. "Incoming!" he snapped, his eyes darting back and forth among the displays as he searched for the source of the attack.

"Where?" Qe

Car'das had it now, coming from directly beneath theBargain Hunter: a long, dark missile arrowing straight toward them. "There," he said, pointing a finger straight down as he stared at the display.

It was only then that his brain caught up with the fact that this wasn't the vector a missile would take from the approaching Hutt ship. He was opening his mouth to point that out when the missile burst open, its nose ejecting a wad of some kind of material. The wad began to expand as it cleared the shards of its container, opening like a fast-blooming flower into a filmy wall stretching over a kilometer across.

"Power off!" Qe

"What is it?" Car'das asked, grabbing for his board's own set of cutoffs.

"A Co

"What, that size?" Car'das asked in disbelief.

"Justdo it," Qe

The net won. Car'das had made it through barely two-thirds of his switches when the rippling edges came into sight around the sides of the hull. They folded themselves inward, curling around toward the bridge

"Close your eyes," Maris warned.

Car'das squeezed his eyes shut. Even through the lids he saw a hint of the brilliant flash as the net dumped its high-voltage current into and through the ship, sending a brief coronal tingling across his skin.

And when he carefully opened his eyes again, every light that had still been glowing across the bridge had gone dark. TheBargain Hunter was dead.

Through the canopy came a flicker of light from the direction of the Hutt ship. "Looks like they got Progga, too," he said, his voice sounding u

"I doubt it," Qe

"Ten to one he'll fight, too," Maris murmured, her voice tight.

"Oh, he'll fight, all right," Qe

A multiple blaze of green blasterfire erupted from the direction of the Hutt ship. It was answered by brilliant blue flashes vectoring in from three different directions, fired from ships too small or too dark to see at theBargain Hunter 's range. "You think whoever this is might get so busy with Progga that they'll forget about us?" Maris asked hopefully.

"I don't think so," Car'das said, gesturing out the canopy at the small gray spacecraft that had taken up position with its nose pointed at the freighter's portside flank. It was about the size of a shuttle or heavy fighter, built in a curved, flowing design of a sort he'd never seen before. "They've left us a guard."

"Figures," Qe

Neither of the others took him up on the bet. Car'das watched the fight, wishing he had his sensors back. He'd read a little about space battle tactics in school, but the attackers' methodology didn't seem to fit with anything he could remember. He was still trying to figure it out when, with a final salvo of blue light, it was over.

"Six minutes," Qe

"You don't recognize them, either?" Maris asked, looking out at their silent guard.

"I don't even recognize the design," he grunted, popping his restraints and standing up. "Let's go check on the damage, see if we can at least get her ready for company. Car'das, you stay here and mind the store."

"Me?" Car'das asked, feeling his stomach tighten. "But what if they-you know-signal us?"

"What do you think?" Qe

Chapter 2

The victors took their time poking or prodding or gloating over whatever was left of the Hutt ship. From the number of maneuvering drives Car'das could see winking on and off, he guessed there were just the three ships that had been involved in the battle itself, plus the one still standing watchful guard off their flank.

Co

"On our way," Qe

The gray ship was starting to pull away when he and Maris returned. "Here we go," Qe

"The rest of the group's still over by the Hutt ship," Car'das said, squeezing carefully past Maris as he headed back to his own station. "Maybe he's taking us there."