'Though why they'd think they'd need one I don't know.'
The alien ships performed three more sets of maneuvers on the way down, none of which Luke had any particular trouble matching. But as they reached the upper atmosphere they seemed to tire of the game, settling into a hard, straight drive toward the western horizon. Luke stayed in formation, splitting his attention between the ships and the ground far below, and stretching out to the Force for any signs of trouble.
They were twenty minutes into their drive, and Artoo had finally made a match between the topography below and the
He ran an eye over the display as the status report appeared. There were no other air-or spacecraft registering on the X-wing's sensors, nothing in their escort's power usage or weapons systems that indicated attack preparation, and the X-wing's own systems were reading fully operative.
'How far to the fortress Mara found?' he asked.
Artoo beeped: less than fifteen minutes at their current speed. 'Sometime in the next ten minutes, I'd guess,' Luke told him. 'Be ready.' Taking a deep breath, settling his hands on the controls, he consciously relaxed his muscles and immersed himself in the Force.
They were registering six minutes to the fortress, and the canyon Mara had flown down had just appeared paralleling them on the distant horizon, when it finally happened. In perfect unison the two escort ships threw a quick spurt of power to their forward thrusters, dropping from flanking into following positions behind the X-wing as their velocities blipped down.
And from nozzles nestled half-hidden beneath their cockpits spat a deadly salvo of blue fire. But their target was no longer there. An instant before the aliens' thrusters had fired, Luke had caught the subtle disturbance in the Force; and by the time their weapons flashed he had thrown the X-wing into a sharp climb, curving up and around in a tight loop that would take him back around into attack position behind his attackers.
Or at least, that was the normal endpoint of the maneuver. This time, though, Luke had other plans. Instead of pulling out of his loop behind the aliens, he held the X-wing's nose pointed toward the ground for an extra pair of heartbeats. Then, at what seemed like the last second, he twisted the starfighter into a stomach-wrenching, twin- rotational turn. An instant later they were running bare meters above the ground on a vector perpendicular to their original course.
'What are they doing?' Luke called, not daring to take his eyes away from the landscape long enough to look for himself.
The droid's warning screech and a sudden tingling in the Force were his answer. From behind came another volley of blue fire, most of it going wide but a few shots splattering off his rear deflector shield. 'Any new friends joined them?' he called.
Artoo warbled a negative. That was something, anyway. Still, those ships were good and the crews clearly knew what they were doing. At two-to-one odds, Luke was going to have his hands full. Especially since—
Artoo twittered an urgent question. 'No, leave the S-foils as they are,' Luke told him. 'We're not going to shoot back.'
The droid's question was a disbelieving whistle. 'Because we don't know who they are or why they're here,' Luke told him, eyes measuring the ground ahead. Just beyond Mara's canyon the terrain abruptly became something shattered-looking, broken into granite-walled cliffs and deep, sharp-edged crevices. 'I don't want to kill any of them until I know who and what they are.' Artoo's rejoinder became another screech as the latest enemy salvo blew a thin layer of metal from the top of the starboard S-foil. 'Don't worry, we're almost there,' Luke soothed him, risking a quick glance at his status displays. No serious damage yet, but that wouldn't last long once the attackers got a little closer.
Which meant that his best hope was to keep that from happening.
Behind him, Artoo whistled suspiciously. 'That's exactly where we're going,' Luke confirmed. They were nearly to the shattered landscape now; and off to portside he spotted a likely looking gorge. 'Oh, relax—it's no worse than some of the other things we've pulled off,' he added, twisting the X-wing's nose toward the gorge. 'Anyway, we haven't got a choice. Hang on—here we go.' Beggar's Canyon on Tatooine had been a tricky but familiar obstacle run of twists and corners and switchbacks. The Death Star trench had been far straighter, but with the addition of turbolaser fire and attacking TIE fighters to keep it interesting. Now, the Nirauan cliffs took the challenge a step farther by adding unpredictable curves and breakpoints, with varying widths and depths, jutting rocks, and clinging tree vines.
The newly signed Rebel recruit at Yavin would have recognized the risks involved. Even the cocky adolescent on Tatooine would have hesitated at the stupidity of tackling such an unknown labyrinth at such high speeds. The seasoned Jedi Luke had become, though, knew he wouldn't have a problem with it.
He was mostly right. The ship sliced through the first series of twists with ease, Luke's piloting skill and prescience in the Force combining with the X-wing's innate maneuverability to leave the alien ships far behind. He shot through an open valley, changed direction toward a new canyon—
And nearly lost control as a burst of blue fire raked across the portside fuselage.
'It's all right,' he called back to Artoo, feeling a flash of annoyance with himself as the X-wing plunged again into
