Sacrifice

"You're going soft. Why are you reeling him back in?"

"I want the fibercord back. It's my favorite Ultra-fine."

"When you get him on the balcony, I'll tranquilize him . . ."

"Then back to Slave I. Scenic route."

"You're lucky we've got jets."

"I wouldn't have come up here if I hadn't." Fett felt the sweat breaking out and running down his spine. This would have been an easier task a few years ago. "And I wouldn't have gone much above thirty floors anyway."

"Why?"

"Hundred-meter line. In case I had to rappel down."

Fraig's face was two meters away now. He'd stopped yelling and settled for labored breathing.

"I haven't got a hundred-meter line," Mirta said.

"Lucky you've got jets, then." He heaved Fraig over the rail in a tangled heap, and Mirta delivered a roundhouse punch that laid the man out. If that was her tranquilizer treatment, she was a born medic. "Time to go."

Mirta shot off at an awkward angle and crashed through the sheet of water ahead of him; there was no force field up here to part the falls.

When Fett looked down, he could see speeders crisscrossing the plaza on either side of the boulevard. He needed to land and find the speeder bike: jets were great for fast exits, but the flame made both of them conspicuous targets in the night sky.

The speeder was still where he'd left it, primed with a detonator and hidden in bushes on the edge of a park. Both the painkiller and the adrenaline were wearing off at the same time, and Fett had never been more