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red-beaked humanoid, in its long, feathered arm. Two male humans armed with needlebeamers ducked as Han’s shots shattered two of the limo’s windows. The assailants, seeing that they had a fight on their hands, made a general migration toward the ground.
    Chewbacca was clambering over the midship luggage well to help Hasti when she, hanging on to Badure with one hand, kicked the engine over and threw the scarlet coach into reverse. Two of the attackers who had been closing in found themselves pouncing on empty air. With a tremendous bump, the coach climbed the curb in reverse. Chewbacca had to cling to a decorative lantern to save himself, and Han jumped aside to keep from being run down, as Hasti hit braking thrusters, kicking up clots of purplish turf and exposing the rich gray soil of Rudrig.
    “Well, pile on, Solo,” she shouted at Han. He barely got to a running board, seizing a footman’s handrail, before the coach surged forward.
    Hasti didn’t quite clear the end of the obstructing limo. The coach bashed it aside, half-rotating the black vehicle and crunching in its own nose cowling with a shower of
greel
wood fragments. Chewbacca cried out at the damage. As they lurched past, Han directed a suppressive barrage at the limo and its passengers, more intent on clinging to his life than on accuracy.
    Hasti swerved to avoid a robo-delivery truck, thereby slamming Han up against the cab and nearly wrenching Chewbacca from the lamp, flipping him over with a snap that twisted his neck and sent his prized admiral’s hat flying in the breeze. The Wookiee keened, grief-stricken for the lost headgear.
    Over the howl of the coach’s engine and the blast of its slipstream, Han yelled, “They’re coming after us!”
    The black limo was already slewing around to give chase. Han brought his blaster up. At that moment Hasti, ignoring a traffic-robo, tore into an intersection directly toward a slow-moving maintenance hauler that was towing a disabled freight ’droid. The girl set all her weight against the steering-grip yoke and hit the coach’s warning horn. The first two bars of the Rudrig University Anthem sounded majestically from the coach’s fractured hood. The maintenance hauler dodged with a bleep of distress and barely missed taking the driver’s side off the coach.
    The coach streaked straight down the thoroughfare now. Holding his abused neck stiffly, Chewbacca began inching forward again in order to take over the driving duties. A double column of students and visitors on an orientation tour chose that moment to enter a crosswalk, and Hasti hit braking thrusters.
    Chewbacca flew head-first into the driver’s compartment and hit the floor, his feet sticking up into the air. But even under those conditions, he had the presence of mind to notice that Badure wasn’t completely aboard, and he clutched the stunned man’s clothing to tug him into the coach. Hasti noticed her companion’s dilemma and gave the coach a snappy cut so that the passenger door swung shut. Though hampered by wires of pain lancing through his neck, the Wookiee began extricating himself.
    Just astern, Han had managed to pull himself inside the passenger cab and saw that the limo was closing in rapidly. He smashed the cab’s crystalline rear window with a hard blow from his blaster. It cracked in webs, split, and fell away. Clearing away the shards, Han leaned his forearms across the empty sill. The coach’s bouncing made the macro-sights useless, so he waited for a clear shot.
    Chewbacca had hauled himself up and was yelping loudly at Hasti and gesturing madly. She somehow understood his meaning and hit the couch adjustment controls, which startedup the servo-motors. Hasti held tightly to the control stem as the couch moved from under her, leaving her in a tense stoop. The Wookiee slid in behind her, whisked her out of the way, then took over the controls. Hasti turned at once and saw to her relief that Badure was unhurt. He was already