All used high-grade fuel, just like the Sekotan ship.
'Three minutes!' Obi-Wan shouted, and climbed up a precariously swaying rack to bring down a fuel hose. Anakin lifted the ship above the floor another meter to ease his master's task.
What Obi-Wan did not tell his Padawan was that the Star Sea Flower was even now setting a delayed charge on the bay doors of the mine ship.
They had just seconds more than three minutes before it blew.
Chapter 63
Tarkin was beside himself with cold rage, his face almost purple. He hunkered beside Sienar in the escape pod as the elderly mine ship captain sealed them in with a sad, fatalistic nod.
'Two minutes from docking!' Tarkin shrilled, pounding the thin bulkhead with his fists. 'We were that close!'
'Careful,' Sienar said. 'These interiors are none too sturdy.'
Tarkin froze, quivering with anger, and stared very hard at Sienar.
'Lowest bidder, you know. I designed them for lightness, not strength,' Sienar said.
Tarkin grabbed for a comlink and yanked it from the wall. He was connected directly with the Einem. 'Captain, whatever you do,' he shouted, 'destroy that damned cargo ship, and destroy all that remains on the planet!'
Chapter 64
Charza Kwinn pulled the Star Sea Flower away from the mine ship and retracted the boarding tunnel. He had left a plug in the hole, and attached to the plug, a charge sufficient to blow the bay doors wide open.
He surveyed with many sharp eyes the ever-changing network of defensive fire spreading out from the Rim Merchant Einem. The mine ship was drifting dangerously close to the hull of the control ship.
An escape pod shot out from the port side of the mine ship and was instantly snared by tractor fields from the Einem.
Obi-Wan and his Padawan had only a few seconds remaining before the charge went off, and it was time for Charza to make his own escape.
Chapter 65
Obi-Wan kicked aside the high-pressure hose and ducked a spray of corrosive fuel. Smoke billowed within the bay. Gravitation within the bay was failing; Charza's bore must have severed grid cables in the doors. Debris drifted up from the floor.
He jumped through the hatch and closed it tight behind. Anakin waggled their ship back and forth to free her from two fallen mine racks. He clasped his master's hand firmly as Obi-Wan settled into his couch.
'Ready?' Obi-Wan asked.
Anakin had never been more ready to leave a place in his life.
'Brace,' Obi-Wan warned.
The charge blew and the doors drew up and ripped aside in less than the blink of an eye. Racks and smoke and debris shot out into space, and the extra nudge pushed the mine ship against the hull of the Einem. The control ship shields braced its hull against the intrusion, but the smaller mine ship did not have a chance. Older, built to be expendable, it cracked along its main structural elements like an egg, and all its fuel-and three defective mines kept in storage-exploded.
The shock wave propelled the Sekotan ship through the breach in the doors. A rack punctured one lobe, and in Anakin's mind the ship gave a small cry of pain, then sealed the wound. He could not control her motion yet; the turbulence was too extreme. He felt more punctures and then a rip across her stern, and again the ship made healing repairs, but her pain was intense.
As the brilliant light of the explosion faded, Obi-Wan saw they were tumbling end over end away from the control ship and the expanding wreckage and plasma ball of the old mine ship.
Anakin brought them up and around, through bursts of aim less laser fire, and directly into a swarm of starfighters. The fast, deadly droid ships seemed to flock out of nowhere, two nearly solid walls flanking the Einem. Anakin had no choice but to reverse course, swoop into the control ship's shadow, and make a desperate run down toward Zonama's atmosphere.
Every other route was blocked.
'She's intact,' Anakin told Obi-Wan. He gave his master a quick smile. 'She's brave and she's beautiful. She'll go anywhere we tell her to.'
Obi-Wan gripped his Padawan's shoulder. 'Shall we live to fight another day?'
'You bet!'
Anakin buried his arms in the control panel, and the ship told him everything that she knew about the planet, where they could fly, and how they might escape.
'The sky is still full of mines,' Obi-Wan said. He touched his set of controls lightly. His fingers sank into the panel, and rows of small green lights flashed around his hands. Impulses passed up his arms, and he was directly
