Revelers fled toward the exit. The general chaos spoiled the sight lines for targeting, made the soldiers of Desert Wind fear to fire for risk of hitting their own people. The infiltration droid’s blaster fired again, catching two more Desert Wind fighters.
When the soldiers tried to help their friends, the smaller JKS swooped in. They could not be stopped, reasoned with, blasted, or evaded. Shock tentacles, electrified netting, stun darts, and blaster bolts erupted with dizzying variety.
It was impossible to predict their moves, or escape them. The JKs restrained and cocooned one miner after another, moving on to their next victim with mechanical dispassion.
“What are they?” Skot screamed, fleeing toward the entrance. “It’s not possible!”
Kit raised his lightsaber, triggering its emerald blade. His every nerve tingled. Obi-Wan had been right. From the very beginning this entire operation had been a disaster.
“Not possible? No one told them!” Sirty yelled tightly. The battlefield sarcasm disappeared almost as swiftly as it had blossomed. “What do we do, sir?”
Kit looked around quickly, trying to spy Obi-Wan. If the other Jedi was in a good position, it was possible—
No more time for thought. One of the droids had trapped a family of four at the edge of the pit. Its blaster tendril pivoted to face them.
“Cover me!” Kit called, and dashed out. He felt the tingle before the beam struck, and skittered aside. He weaved wildly, fiercely, Form I-style improvisation applied to pure evasion. He dodged and dashed, covering ground toward the crouching family with blistering speed.
Sizzling bolts missed him by bare centimeters. Where they struck, rock shattered and smoked. He felt a brief, intense electric jolt as a bolt grazed his hip, splashing against the ground. The Nautolan had begun to dodge even before the beam arced in his direction. Kit thanked his Jedi skills, and knew that his only hope was to stay out of range. These were personal security droids: apparently the tactical chips hadn’t been swapped. That would limit their effectiveness as instruments of aggression, but still …
Now he was close to the infiltration droid, and his light-saber seared the air, slicing through the treads with a flash. The intruder droid staggered and toppled toward the others. Another droid was nicked but managed to stay erect as it pivoted to target Kit.
Finally, he located Obi-Wan. The Jedi had clung to the shadows, and approached the droids from the rear, grim and determined, two clones at his back. Their sidearms were inadequate to stop the invading machines, but proved excellent distraction. Obi-Wan was able to approach from another angle. His lightsaber flashed, slicing treads. As one of the droids fell to the ground, Obi-Wan closed the gap and slit its mechanical underbelly. Gears and plastine coils bulged out.
Oily smoke flooded the cave. Miners, troopers, and Jedi were engulfed in vile thin vapor. While not actually poisonous, the caves soon echoed with hacking and retching sounds. Through it all, the JKs captured one miner after another. Nothing stopped them. Nothing slowed them. They seemed to aim where a person would be in a moment, rather than where he or she was now. The infiltration droids had weaknesses, but the JKs seemed to have none at all.
Obi-Wan’s senses tingled and he whirled barely in time to see one of the infiltration droids fixing him in its sights. There was no place, no time to move, only time to raise his lightsaber, awaiting the deadly flash.
With an eye-numbing blast, the droid was struck from the other side. It staggered, long enough for Obi-Wan to close the gap and sever its treads. The mechanical monster reared back and then fell sideways, crushing segments of stalactite as it did.
He looked over at the spot where the saving blasts had been launched—and saw Doolb Snoil waving back, stubby arms bracing one of the portable cannons against his shell.
Despite their desperate straits Obi-Wan could not repress a smile. After all this time, Snoil had repaid his debt to the Jedi several times over, even if it meant disobeying orders—
Then a cracking sound drew his attention to the ceiling. One of the stalactites had been weakened when the droid reared up. It separated from the ceiling and began to fall. “Snoil!” Obi-Wan cried out, but it was already too late. The barrister looked up just as the rock spear hit his shell, lancing through the outer toughness into the vulnerable flesh beneath.
Within seconds Obi-Wan was at his side. As he cradled Snoil’s heavy, fleshy head in his arms, the Vippit’s rapidly declining body temperature confirmed Obi-Wan’s worst fears. His friend was dying. Snoil’s eyestalks wcaved up toward him. “I did it, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.” Obi-Wan had never noticed the little flecks of color along Snoil’s neck. They were bright green and blue against the browning flesh, and they were growing dull even as he watched.
“If there is any combat bonus, make certain that my broodmates receive full measure … and …” His stalk-tip eyes grew dim and glazed. “And see that it isn’t taxed. The agreement we signed with the Republic, which my grandfather negotiated …,” he said proudly. He coughed a green bubble, and even before it burst he went still.
Obi-Wan laid Snoil’s head gently on the ground. “A great barrister, from a great line,” he said.
Then he returned to the fight.
Jangotat found himself trapped between a press of miners and an onrushing JK. Escape through the front cave seemed to be unimpeded, although instinct told him that enemy troops would be stationed in line of sight of the cave mouth, ready to pick off fleeing anarchists.
How had this disaster happened? General Kenobi had been correct: there was more here than met the eye.
Still, it was his duty to follow orders, and his inclination to protect unarmed and innocent civilians.
From a hiding point behind a massive stalagmite he fired at the droids again and again with his blaster rifle. The blue laser bolts sang off the outer casing, doing no damage. Resta and another Desert Wind fighter fired at it. The JK went at them, ensnaring the man in stun-cable as Resta sprang to the side with surprising agility.
Was that the only way to escape one of these demonic things? Sacrifice a friend?
A terrible crash shook the cave as another of the infiltration droids fell, and he took heart. The cave entrance rocked with another flash, followed by more screams. Bodies and wreckage flew back into the cavern, and smoke rolled. Screams and moans filtered out from beneath the rubble.
There. The trap had closed, and the pressure was crushing.
“Side caves!” someone yelled. The miners, farmers, and soldiers of Desert Wind scrambled back and away from the main action. Jangotat stood with his back against the wall as the miners fled into the side cavern. This entire mountain was honeycombed with such tunnels. There was no way an enemy could cover all of them. Many of his compatriots could escape to fight again another day … he hoped.
Another droid toppled and fell. Was that the third infiltration droid down? How many remained? If the blasts from outside stopped, they might have a chance. But they didn’t, and that meant they were dead in the water.
The sight of green fluid bubbling from Doolb Snoil’s crushed shell triggered a deep, hot wave of regret. The barrister had been a true asset. In his own way, the Vippit had even displayed courage.
He glimpsed the Jedi, magnificent and fearless in battle, leading others by word and example. Glimpses were all he could catch: they moved so swiftly from one hiding place or ambush spot to another, darting out to slash at a leg or protect an innocent farmer. His spirits soared. Perhaps—
Then to his dismay Jangotat spotted Sheeka Tull. When had she entered the cave? Why hadn’t he seen her? He knew that he should leave the main cave with the others, but Sheeka was cut off. She cowered behind a boulder, perhaps uncertain where to go.
“Sheeka!” he called to her. In the tumult his voice could not be heard. Only one thing to do—he dashed out and grabbed her, pulling them both behind a boulder as the last infiltration droid blasted in his direction. He heard himself scream, wat
ched the world turn white, and then all sight and sound and sensation died away to darkness.
55
Sheeka Tull had argued with herself about coming to the celebration, not entirely comfortable with the deepening of her relationship with the clone trooper she now called Jangotat. It was all too possible that if she went to the camp, their relationship would grow more entangling still. But despite her misgivings she had gone, and now she was both horrified and glad of her decision.
The unexpected droid intrusion had overwhelmed her. She still shook almost uncontrollably. The droids were creatures of nightmare, and she felt her mind trying to shut down on her, attempting to surrender consciousness to save her the horror of painful death. Her feet froze to the ground as the giant droid locked its sights upon her. Her wind whuffed out of her as something collided with her from the right side, and she was pulled down behind a boulder by none other than Jangotat himself. There was no doubt but that he had risked his life to save hers, shielding her body with his own. When a blaster chipped rock behind her it grazed Jangotat: his face contorted in agony and he bit through his own lip. His clothes peeled away in smoking scraps, exposing a badly scalded back. He rolled off her, unconscious, shirt and pants smoking. Dead?
No. She checked. Merely stunned. Even half conscious, Jangotat’s hands cast about, as if searching for his rifle. She found it and placed it in his palms. His fingers curled around it, and he trembled, as if trying to awaken himself.
As if war was all he knew, or ever could know.
The yelling and screaming intensified to a ghastly peak, then died away. Another wall-shaking explosion followed, but she risked a peek.
Several of the recruits were engaged in heroic combat against a killer droid tall enough to graze the ceiling. Their combined blasts actually drove it back a step. To her left, a golden hourglass-shaped droid absorbed a similar volley with little apparent effect, tentacles casting about and bringing down one miner after another.
The side caves still looked clear. She dragged Jangotat over in their direction and was met halfway by a tall, thin, blond miner, Skot OnSon. She barely knew him. Yesterday he was a boy. Now his eyes were an old man’s.
“Can I help you get him out of here?” OnSon asked her, keeping one eye on the battle. The air was rent with eye-searing energy bolts.
“Okay.”
OnSon’s calm facade seemed to crack a bit. Was it the sight of Jangotat’s scared face? Was that what had unnerved the boy, even as he struggled to find courage? Or was he using this excuse to get out of the charnel house?
Together they pulled Jangotat toward safety and darkness. The tunnels behind them flashed with light. Screams echoed in the caves, even as they lost themselves in the labyrinthine twists and turns of the side tunnels, winding their way toward a dubious safety.
56
Obi-Wan led a group of six refugees into a side cave, shepherding them across the uneven floor through the darkness. Behind them, he heard the clank of a pursuing droid. His group had only three blasters. Two of its members were children. If they were lucky, the cave would narrow, such that the larger droids couldn’t pursue. Would one of the JKs spot them? If it did, they were most likely dead.
He brushed past webbing as he ran. Old? New? A few hand-size winged reptiles were suspended in one of them, and he remembered something that Kit had told him about the ARC’s first day in the caves. What was that?
“Gen’ Kenobi!” Resta called, jerking him out of his desperate memory scan. It took only a moment to see the threat: the cave had indeed narrowed, and blocking the exit were four gigantic cave spiders, staring at them with glowing red eyes.
How could he have forgotten! Kit may have driven the spiders out of the main caves, kept them away with sensors and proximity mines, but in fleeing, these unlucky humans had jumped from the griddle to the grave.
The spiders hissed, and Obi-Wan triggered his lightsaber. Spiders ahead. Droids behind. They were trapped, and perhaps all he could do now was sell his life dearly …
Then he realized that the spiders weren’t hissing at them. No. They were hissing at the approaching JK droid, and he understood why. It was behaving as it had in the arena, half a lifetime ago: dividing into segments that then gripped the ground like the limbs of a thick-legged, small-bodied spider. Perhaps they’d watched a JK cast a web at a fleeing human, and must have thought the droids to be some strange kind of arachnid, more natural competition than the offworlders.
The arachnid defense of their territory was automatic and devastating.
And the JKs seemed to accept the challenge. They cast tentacles, stunning several spiders, but others shot silk in cascades as the offworlders retreated to the shadows.
It was one of the most bizarre spectacles Obi-Wan had ever seen. The spiders could not stop the JK, but they could slow it with their silk, and by swarming it with smaller spiders. The air clouded with silk and stunned, smoking spiders but they came on and on. Obi-Wan managed to get his people out, but turned to watch the spiders as they made their stand.
The JK fired, pumping juice into the spiders until …
It’s running out of power! Obi-Wan realized. It had probably defeated the equivilent of a hundred warriors, but was running out of power! Now the spiders rained more silk on it, and Obi-Wan screamed to his people to fire at the stalactites above the JK, burying it in rock and sticky strands. Even then, the JK trembled against the rock. Exhausted but refusing to give up, still trying to reach its enemies.
Unbelievable.
Obi-Wan faced the cave spider clan. An immense red female stepped slowly forward, sheltering her young. Obi-Wan and the female stared at each other, and in her eyes he saw awareness. They were not friends, not allies, but had faced a common enemy.
The matron bent her forward legs, bowing. Obi-Wan raised his lightsaber in salute. The matron backed away into the shadows with her brood.
“You’re letting them go?” one of the farmers breathed.
“We’re letting each other go,” he corrected. “No favors. Just respect.” The shadows had claimed the spider clan. One day soon the offworlders would be gone, and the caves would belong to the spiders. What then? Was there any way for the eight-legged folk to ever walk in the sun again?
Perhaps. There might be a way to finesse such an outcome. First, of course, he had to survive. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to find a way out.”
57
Navigating twisting side tunnels, it took another exhausting hour for Sheeka to make her way back to the surface. For the first ten minutes, they heard distant explosions and screams. Then … nothing. The golden-haired young miner stayed with her the entire time, but as soon as he saw that she was in the clear, OnSon said, “I’ve got to go back.”
“No.” She clutched at his arm. “You’ll be killed.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” OnSon examined the wounded clone. “Take care of him. He fought well.” And he disappeared back down the tunnel.
Sheeka wiped her face, gritty with the rock dust that seemed to have ground its way into her body’s every crevice. It took her a few moments to orient herself. She was on the far side of the ridge. Good. This was where she had hidden Spindragon. An arc of light split the southern sky—the cave battle was continuing. The distant thunder of security assault ships filled her ears.
In the depths of those caves, sheer chaos had clawed its way into the living world. For a moment she was torn. Was there anything she could do? Were her friends being maimed and slaughtered, friends who might survive if she went to their aid? Then Jangotat groaned, and all options were reduced to one: find the trooper medical assistance immediately. Get help for the man who had protected her at the cost of his own flesh. She dragged him down over the rocks. Jangotat was semiconscious now. He shuddered with pain for a few minutes, and then fumbled with something at his belt. Almost immediately, his body relaxed. She panicked as he became a deadweight, but when he began to struggle to his feet she figured he had self-administered
some kind of painkiller that left him dreamy but still able to walk.
She supported his shoulder, trying not to touch any of the spots seared by the droid’s blast. He stumbled along beside her, knees buckling and ankles turning. Then he began to carry some of his own weight, and for that she was grateful.
They stumbled down the side of the defile. There, hidden in a maze of shadows, was Spindragon. Although by now the muscles in her legs and back screamed for release, Sheeka ignored them and hauled Jangotat toward the ship, and safety.
“Leave … me …,” she heard him whisper, and it alarmed her that some part of her silently agreed, wanted to give up. But Sheevis Tull, the same man who had taught her to fly, had taught her to ignore the weak and traitorous voices in her head. She disregarded them and bent to the task at hand. Breathe, pull, rest. Breathe, pull, rest …
She lost count of the cycles of pulling and breathing, but a moment came when Spindragon’s autopilot sensed her proximity and automatically extended the ramp, a sensible, albeit costly modification. She climbed up the incline, Jangotat gripping at her with a weakening hand. With every minor jolt, he grunted as if the pain stripped his nerves raw.
A few more staggering steps brought them into the ship’s interior. Sheeka loaded Jangotat into a crash seat, and initiated the ship’s warm-up sequence.
“Don’t worry,” she called back to him. “We’re getting out of here.”
He seemed to smile at her weakly, and made a closed-fist gesture she had seen him make to other clones. She thought that it meant “good to go.” Gritting her teeth, Sheeka turned back to her controls. She would have to deal with him, of course, but the first task was to get out of the mountains in one piece.
Her scanners indicated that a quartet of enemy ships was sweeping toward her from the north. Time to move.
All systems flushed and ready, Sheeka started her engines and lifted Spindragon from the ground, whirling her in place as the first of the pursuit ships appeared over the broken stone horizon.
The Cestus Deception: Star Wars (Clone Wars): A Clone Wars Novel Page 26