and sped away only to skid to a halt to avoid colliding with a landspeeder Its driver was the man with the goatee To Ezra's utter amazement the man leapt out of the landspeeder kicked the rider off the bike then drew his blaster and fired at the oncoming stormtrooper squad His burly nonhuman comrade thumped out from an alley to assist hurling stormtroopers around as if they were rag dolls Below Ezra the lead Imperial bike lay unattended along with the two crates attached to it Whatever was inside them must be highly valuable to have caused the confrontation If he sold the contents he might never have to pick pockets again Taking a deep breath he jumped off the roof and landed in the bike's seat Thanks for doing the heavy lifting he said to the man and his bruiser friend then heeled the pedals and was off zipping through the city 7
All of a sudden the girl in the Mandalorian armor dropped from the sky to land on Ezra's rearmost crate She detached it from his bike and fell away with it If that big guy catches you he'll end you she said her voice filtered through her helmet Ezra couldn't retrieve the crate because the man and the bruiser trailed him on stolen bikes He veered down alleys snaked through an Imperial blockade and got onto the freeway The would be thieves remained on his tail now pursued by stormtroopers on bikes The troopers fired at all of them and Ezra's bike was hit Ezra lost control and his bike tumbled over the partition into the other lane The man followed him swinging his bike in front of Ezra's I've got plans for that crate so time to give it up Today's not your day the man said TIE fighters roared down from the sky Day's not over yet Ezra said TIE lasers 8
struck the man's bike and Ezra raced away off the freeway into the grasslands The TIES pursued unleashing their cannons Ezra zigzagged between the prairie mounds but could only evade the guns for so long One finally scored a hit Ezra pressed the cargo detachment button then flew off the bike as it crashed A TIE swerved around to finish off Ezra He stood there waiting for the inevitable when a diamond-shaped freighter burst out of the clouds and blasted the TIE into a fireball The man with the ponytail emerged from the freighter's cargo hatch Want a ride Ezra turned to the hover crate Having almost been vaporized because of it he couldn't leave it there He switched the crate's repulsors to max then grabbed it and jumped The crate landed on the freighter's ramp Ezra clawed up behind it 9
