“We need to kill whoever’s coming after us,” the Nihil’s leader said to the rest of her crew—a Cloud, she had called herself. “Egga, Rel, get up in the hills, on either side. Find spots where you have a good view of the canyon. Mack, Buggo, and I will keep going for the ship. We’ll take the family with us, so they’ll have to come this way. Take them out.”

Erika listened as these arrangements were put into play, and with a jerk, the cart began moving again, rapidly picking up speed.

But now there was no guard, and she was able to complete the maneuver her husband had shown her, getting her hands in front of her as opposed to stuck behind her back. First, she felt Ottoh’s pulse—steady and strong. He was unconscious, but maybe that was all. Her husband attended to, Erika turned to her children. She touched Bee’s face and kissed her, and then took Ronn’s hands in hers.

“You’re both being so strong, so brave. We’re so proud of you.”

“Is Dada all right?” Bee asked.

“He will be. Don’t worry about your father. Just stay calm, and be ready to do whatever I ask you to do, when the time comes. For now, try to get your hands out in front of you, like I did. You’re a little wriggly worm. You can do it, I know you can. You, too, Ronn.”

She watched as both her children contorted themselves as she had requested.

Now what? she thought.

Erika had an unconscious husband and two children to save somehow, and—

She remembered their pursuers. Help, maybe, and on its way.

She reached up to grasp the edge of the cart and pulled herself up, looking back. Surely they had to be close—and they were. The delay from Ottoh’s trick with the steelees had done its job. They couldn’t be more than five hundred meters back.

She could see them now—three figures, riding well, riding fast—these were experienced wranglers, nothing like their captors.

Erika wanted to yell out, to tell them they were riding into a trap, but she didn’t think they could hear her, and didn’t want to do anything that would cause the Nihil to decide a seventy-five percent profit margin would be fine after all.

Then something happened.

Three lines of light blossomed from the riders coming up fast behind them: one gold, one blue, one green, and Erika realized what was happening, who these people were.

“By the light,” she breathed. “They’re Jedi.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

“You guys ready to ride the storm?” Kassav shouted.