Free Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, Volume 9 by Jude Watson Page B

spotlight more clearly on it. Ferus needed to divert the Emperor’s attention from Alderaan, not
attract it.
    What he needed was a push-back. Something that would send his assailant running so that he could trail him.
    Ferus leaped above to the rack and pulley system that still held old parts and engines. He crawled forward and found the mechanism that moved the parts forward on an automatic track. He
activated it.
    Now the rack moved forward, jerking slightly as it went. The noise brought the attention of the shooter, and blasterfire streaked through the air, hitting behind Ferus now as the rack moved
forward. Ferus released an airspeeder engine. It smashed to the floor. Then a windscreen. Engine parts. A halfway dismantled pit droid. Sparks flew upward as the metal screeched against the
permacrete floor.
    The rack kept moving, faster now, on the fastest speed that Ferus could locate, and he balanced on the pulley, moving forward and dropping parts and engines and heavy sheets of metal as it went.
It was tricky to keep his balance on the pulley as it jerked along, but he managed it.
    The space was now full of the sound of crashing metal, and Ferus tracked the shadow as it moved, trying to get a fix on him. Ferus’s aim was to corner him, but he was moving so fluidly and
the pulley system just wasn’t fast enough.
    If only he was strong enough in the Force to give the heavy objects a little
push.
    Within his tunic he felt the Holocron glow.
    You are forgetting what your rage can do.
    His irritation at the spy surprising him was just a spark, something he had accepted and released. It had been so unimportant. It got in the way of Jedi battle-mind.
    He revived it. Fanned it.
    His anger grew.
    How dare he interfere with me?
    He, just a low-level spy. He thinks he’s going to win.
    He is nothing.
    The next airspeeder part didn’t just crash to the floor. It flew through the air with great velocity, smashing over the shadow’s head. Ferus fed his anger until it balled up into
rage and shot out into the space, taking the machinery and parts and flinging them toward the hiding places of the spy.
    Satisfaction coursed through him. Thoughts of forcing the spy to flee and tailing him vanished.
I can smash him I can kill him I can destroy him….
    He saw the shadow moving toward the door, a tall, thin figure that seemed familiar. How remarkable that even through the red haze of his anger his perceptions could be so sharp….
    You see? You use the anger. It does not confuse. It sharpens.
    The spy ran out toward the ramp.
    Ferus jumped from the pulleys. He leaped over the piles of smoking metal.
    His mind cooled. He saw even as he ran how thoroughly he had destroyed this space.
    He didn’t feel satisfaction anymore. He felt unsettled. Guilty. He pushed away the feeling. He would deal with it all later. Now it was time to track the spy.
    Ferus ran down the ramp, running fast but not fast enough to risk letting the spy know he was being followed. He would assume that it would take some time for Ferus to fight his way through the
machinery piled on the floor in the hangar above. He wouldn’t imagine that Ferus would be on his heels.
    He followed the spy down the ramp, down below street level. Ferus wanted to kick himself. He hadn’t done such a good job of reconnoitering after all. The buildings were linked by an
underground passage.
    The passage was dimly lit and wide enough for the biggest gravsled to operate. Ferus could hear the spy’s progress and tracked him through his footsteps. He had slowed down now, assuming
he hadn’t been followed. Ferus followed him in the passage for about a kilometer. Then he hopped aboard a turbolift. Ferus looked up at the indicator. He’d gotten off at street level.
He counted out a few seconds and then followed.
    Ferus emerged into a surprisingly busy street. Dawn was just beginning to streak the sky with orange. He saw gravsleds and utility ramps set up down at the end of the