Anakin went right around behind, only to find the lead speeder stopped and blocking the alleyway, the assassin leaning out the door, blaster pistol leveled.
'Ah, blast,' the Padawan remarked.
'Stop!' Obi-Wan told him, and both ducked as a line of bolts came at them.
'No, we can make it!' Anakin insisted, punching the throttle. He dived his speeder under the assassin's, barely missing it, then went up on edge, slipping through a small gap in the building. But there were pipes there, and no level of flying could put the speeder safely through them. They bounced sidelong, then nipped end over end, narrowly missing a giant crane and clipping some struts. The damage brought forth a giant fiery gas ball, nearly immolating them, and in the uncontrolled spin that followed, they bounced off yet another building and the speeder stalled out.
Anakin winced, expected a line of curses to come at him, but when he finally looked at Obi-Wan, he saw the Jedi staring straight ahead, eyes wide and unblinking, and saying, 'I'm crazy, I'm crazy, I'm crazy…' over and over again.
'But it worked,' Anakin dared to say. 'We made it.'
'It didn't work!' Obi-Wan yelled at him. 'We've stalled! And you almost got us killed!'
Anakin looked down at his hands and body, and waggled his fingers. 'I think we're still alive!' He grinned, trying to disarm his fuming Master, but Obi- Wan seemed as if he was about to explode.
'It was stupid!' Obi-Wan roared.
Anakin worked wildly, trying to restart the speeder. 'I could have made it,' he protested sheepishly. His confident expression strengthened as the speeder roared back to life.
'But you didn't! And now we've lost him!'
Even as Obi-Wan finished, a barrage of laser bolts rained down around them, setting off explosions that rocked them back and forth. The pair looked up, to see the assassin zooming away.
'No, we didn't,' a smiling Anakin said. He took the speeder up, the sudden thrust violently throwing them both back in their seats. They came through the area of smoke and carnage with several small fires burning on their speeder. Obi-Wan slapped at flames on the control panel.
Again they chased the assassin into the main travel lanes, dodging and turning fast about incoming traffic. Up ahead, the assassin cut fast to the left, between two buildings, and Anakin responded, going right and up.
'Where are you going?' a perplexed Obi-Wan asked. 'He went down there, the other way.'
'This is a shortcut. I think.'
'What do you mean, you think? What kind of shortcut? He went completely the other way! You've lost him!'
'Master, if we keep this chase going, that creep's gonna end up deep- fried,' Anakin tried to explain. 'Personally, I'd very much like to find out who he is, and who he's working for.'
'Oh,' Obi-Wan replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. 'So that's why we're going in the wrong direction.'
Anakin took them up and around, finally settling into a hover some fifty stories up from the street.
'Well, you lost him,' Obi-Wan said.
'I'm deeply sorry, Master,' Anakin replied. Again, he seemed hardly convincing, as if he was saying just what he had to say to keep Obi-Wan from scolding him further. The Jedi Knight looked at him hard, ready to call him on it, when he noticed that Anakin, seemingly deep in concentration, was counting softly.
'Excuse me for a moment,' the Padawan said. He stood up and, to Obi-Wan's complete shock, stepped out of the speeder.
Obi-Wan lurched over to the edge and stared down, watching Anakin drop- about five stories, before landing atop the roof of a familiar speeder that was zooming beneath them.
'I hate it when he does that,' Obi-Wan muttered incredulously, shaking his head.
Zam Wesell skimmed close to the buildings, staying to the side of the main traffic lanes. She didn't know whether the probe droid had successfully completed its mission, but she was feeling pretty good at that moment, having outwitted a pair of Jedi.
Suddenly her speeder shook hard. At first she thought she had been hit by a blaster bolt, but then, surveying for damage, she came to know the truth of the missile, and to know that it- that he-had somehow landed on her speeder.
Zam backed off on the throttle, then slammed it out full, lurching the craft ahead. The force of the sudden acceleration nearly dislodged Anakin, sending him sliding back to the tail, but he hung on stubbornly and, to Zam's dismay, even began crawling back toward the cockpit.
With a sneer, Zam hit the brakes, hard, and Anakin went sliding and bouncing past her.
But the stubborn young Jedi caught one of the twin front forks of the speeder and hung on yet again.
Zam accelerated and reached out her blaster pistol, letting fly a series of bolts in Anakin's general direction. The angle was wrong, though, and she couldn't score any hits. And there he was, crawling back stubbornly toward the roof despite all of Zam's evasive maneuvers. Her Clawdite form came back, suddenly and briefly, as she lost concentration, but she recovered quickly.
The bounty hunter cursed under her breath and swooped back into traffic, trying to formulate some plan for ridding herself of the troublesome Jedi. She went back into her evasive, traffic-dodging maneuvers yet again, entertaining the thought of moving in close to some of the heavier traffic and letting the exhaust plume smoke the fool atop her craft. She had almost convinced herself to do just that when suddenly a glowing blue blade of energy sheared through the top of her speeder and plunged down beside her. She looked up to see the stubborn young Jedi cutting through the roof. Swerving all about, she fired off a shot at him, then another. Finally, to her relief, a shot took the lightsaber from his hand, though whether she had taken the hand, as well, or just the weapon, she
