Darkest Knight

by Kevin J. Anderson

  from the blaster of a stormtrooper.

  Her reptilian armor covered only her torso, leaving her limbs

  unprotected from scratches and insect bites-but she did not allow such

  minor inconveniences to bother her.

  As the companions ran deeper into the forest, Tenel Ka took care to

  maintain her balance and watched out for her friend Jacen.

  Though he was highly skilled in sensing strange life-forms, Jacen was

  not as physically capable as she was. This was the chase.

  The hunt. Here she was in her element.

  But at the moment Terrel Ka was not the stalker, but the prey.

  Her reflexes were sharpened by her inability to see through the forest

  shadows. Her lightsaber could have lit the way, but she didn't dare

  ignite it for fear of drawing attention to their position. At the moment

  her focus had to be on simply running.

  All around, she detected looming dangers that grew worse, more

  foreboding, as they leapt from one level to the next, descending into

  thicker and thicker primeval wilderness.

  Tenel Ka sensed that the two Wookiees felt the increasing threat; Lowie

  and Sirra moved more cautiously, supporting each other as they used

  their night vision to choose a path.

  At a broad, open intersection of wide branches, the Wookiees paused,

  panting for breath. Jacen slumped beside Tenel Ka, utterly exhausted.

  The knew they couldn't y stop for long.

  During the brief rest, Tenel Ka remained standing. She turned in a slow

  circle, granitegray eyes narrowed, sharply attentive for movement, for

  predators lurking in the surrounding trees. Her Jedi senses detected no

  dangerous animals, only a tingling underlying threat that grew more and

  more powerful.

  Just then, a leathery plant tentacle wrappedquickly around Tenel Ka's

  waist and drew itself snug. Thin thorns dug into her flesh through her

  reptilian armor. She cried out-and suddenly the air around them came

  alive with whipping, writhing vines from above.

  Both Wookiees howled and thrashed. Jacen yelped. The thorny vines yanked

  him into the air, legs kicking, hands flailing. In an instant Tenel Ka

  snatched out her lightsaber andignoring the threat of revealing their

  position to the stormtroopers-ignited the glowing turquoise blade. Her

  arm swept sideways, severing the vines that grasped her waist.

  Jacen yelled again and managed to get his lightsaber out, too. Swinging

  it above his head, he slashed through the vicious plant stems with a

  sizzling, wet sound. The spicy smell of burned sap cascaded into the

  air.

  Lowbacca roared and ignited his Jedi weapon, striking left and right

  with the molten bronze blade. Hungry tentacles snaked toward him, eager

  to pull the Wookiee upward to where the knotted cluster of vines came

  together in a cavernous opening that emitted.a sound like rocks grinding

  together, a slavering gullet ready to smash them into digestible pieces.

  Two of the vines caught Sirrakuk and wrapped themselves tightly around

  her arms.

  She bared her Wookiee fangs and, bunching her powerful muscles, ripped

  the vines free of the central stem with brute force. The plant seemed

  not to notice; it went on thrashing its tentacles, and its open gullet

  continued to mash and grind.

  Within moments, three flashing lightsabers sliced away the clinging

  tentacles and left only twitching stumps at the end of the voracious

  vine creature.

  "We've escaped!" Em Teedee said. "Oh, how wonderful!"

  "This is a fact," Tenel Ka agreed. She examined the red welts and oozing

  scratches she had received during the battle, then looked up toward the

  next level of branches.

  "But our lightsabers have attracted the enemy."

  The others turned to follow her gaze. On the branches above them,

  completely surrounding the group, stood a contingent of fully armed

  stormtroopers, their blasters pointed down at the young Jedi Knights.

  Jacen shut off the emerald beam of his lightsaber and squatted on the

  branch, breathing hard as he surveyed the encircling stormtroopers. In

  other circumstances, he would have found the underworld of Kashyyyk

  fascinating, filled as it was with insects and trees, fems, vines,

  flowers, lizardsa million new pets for him to inspect, then set free. He

  found many of the life-forms to be incomprehensible, unlike anything he

  had 'ever experienced. Even now, with stormtroopers like pale statues

  above, blasters at the ready and aimed at him, Jacen could sense the

  hidden creatures around them.

  Near one of the stormtroopers who stood on a decaying branch, Jacen

  noticed that a broad patch of bark lay wet and damp, like a mottled

  tongue wrapped around the tree. It was slick, glistening, moving on a

  cellular level.

  Two more dark figures joined the gathered stormtroopers. The ominous

  Nightsister Vonnda Ra, with her hard muscles, broad shoulders, and

  glittering black body armor, stood next to Zekk, his dark hair neatly

  tied back with a thong at the nape of his neck, his swirling

  scarlet-lined cape undamaged by leaves or twigs. The stormtroopers shone

  glowrods down on the scene.

  "You are trapped, Jedi brats," Vonnda Ra said. "It could be amusing to

  watch you grovel for your lives-but I can assure you it would do you no

  good."

  "We do not intend to grovel," Tenel Ka said, and the Nightsister glared

  at the young warrior girl from Dathomir.

  Jacen focused his concentration on the wide, mysterious slick patch

  wrapped around the branch. It seemed like a river of damp leather, and

  as he concentrated, he felt a dim awareness, a rudimentary brain that

  was more a cluster of reflexes. But reflexes were all Jacen needed right

  now.

  "I'm sorry it has come to this," Zekk said, "but I owe my allegiance to

  the Second Imperium now, and you are my sworn enemies. I can no longer

  deny it. That was my choice."

  Despite his words, the expression on Zekk's high-cheekboned face and the

  disturbed look in his green eyes showed Jacen how troubled he truly was.

  One of the stormtroopers moved sideways to get a clearer shot at them.

  Jacen watched. Just a little more, just a little more . . .

  Perhaps he sent out the thought with the Force, because the stormtrooper

  did indeed take one more step. His heavy, booted foot planted itself

  squarely on the wide wet patch.

  Without warning, the creature reacted.

  A slithering flap of wet, slimy meat in the form of a monstrous slughke

  beast raised itself from its sleeping position. The motion knocked the

  stormtrooper completely off the branch, and he tumbled screaming into

  the depths of the forest.

  With a thick slurping sound the enormous slug creature reared up and up

  and up, thrashing from side to side, knocking two other stormtroopers

  from their positions. The Imperial soldiers were thrown into

  pandemonium, shouting and shooting.

  Jacen did his best to send a thought to the thing, identifying the

  white-armored guards as the enemy and planting the idea that Jacen, the

  two Wookiees, and Tenel Ka were the slow-witted cre
ature's friends.

  Stormtroopers opened fire on the monster, but the blasters did little

  more than annoy it.

  Branches crashed and snapped. Energy bolts ricocheted around in the

  forest as the slug creature continued its reflexive attack.

  Jacen stood transfixed, fascinated with the battle and the havoc the

  beast had already caused. Zekk and Vonnda Ra shouted conflicting orders.

  The next thing Jacen knew, Tenel Ka slammed him aside. A blaster bolt

  sizzled past him as she wrapped a vine around her arm, grasped his

  waist, and dove to a lower branch. The two Wookiees were already ahead

  of them in their headlong flight.

  Making quick use of the diversion, the young Jedi Knights continued

  down, down dropping all the way to the bottom levels of the forest.

  -----------------THE FOREST DARKNESS was so thick Jaina could

  practically taste it. She followed the agile Chewbacca more by sound

  than by any other sense, finding herself relying more and more on the

  Force to guide her hands and feet. The air was cooler here below the

  canopy.

  Jaina shivered, though she doubted it was entirely because of the drop

  in temperature.

  With his sharp Wookiee vision, Chewie led the way without hesitation. He

  barked an occasional warning about a patch of slippery moss or a weak

  branch. Neither made any great attempt to keep quiet: their one concern

  was to catch up with their friends before it was too late.

  Gradually Jaina's eyesight adjusted enough that she could make out the

  shadowy forms of tree trunks, black against deep gray. It wasn't much to

  go by, but it helped. Chewbacca made a snuffling sound and gave a low

  woof of triumph.

  "They came this direction?" she asked.

  He yipped an affirmative. Their smells were here. He detected four . . .

  no, five of them, as well as a faint smell of metal. Jaina decided he

  must be picking up on Em Teedee, Chewie growled low in his throat,

  muttering about other smells too: plasteel, burned branches, the

  thunderstorm-smell of ozone from blaster discharges.

  Jaina's heart skipped a beat. 'Definitely sounds like the Nightsisters

  brought stormtroopers down here with them."

  Chewbacca increased his speed, following the fresh trail. Once Jaina

  misjudged the spacing and almost fell between a pair of tree branches

  that were farther apart than she'd thought. 'Chewie, I can barely see,"

  she said.

  With a chuff of understanding, the Wookiee stopped briefly, rummaged

  through the emergency pack he had taken from the fabrication facility,

  and pulled out a small mesh jar.

  Jaina recognized a phosflea lure. He broke the seal.

  Moments later, as if the glowing specks had materialized directly from

  the air, the lure's surface was covered with tiny phosphorescent

  insects. Chewbacca fastened the lure to a strap around Jaina's waist.

  The "light" now shed a pinkish glow directly in front of her that

  swirled like a comet's tail as she moved along.

  Chewbacca pointed below Jaina to a freshly broken branch and the burned

  scoring from weapon fire. The others had come this way.

  'You're right," Jaina said. 'I can feel them, not too far ahead."

  The Wookiee helped her across the broad gap and they resumed their

  descent. Jaina climbed after him, watching handholds and footholds more

  carefully now as the glowing phosfleas lit her way. A feeling of dread

  mounted more strongly within her as they descended to each deeper level.

  She could feel the weight of the overlying forest pressing down on them.

  Unseen predators bounded across leafy limbs, pursuing their quarries;

  the shriek of victims fallen in the endless hunt echoed through the

  thick labyrinth of branches.

  Smaller creatures chirped, buzzed, and chittered. None of them sounded

  friendly to her.

  Jaina knew that her ftiends were good fighters, but she knew, too, that

  even Lowie the strongest of all of them, feared the jungles of Kashyyyk.

  That alone was cause for worry, but the young Jedi Knights and Sirra had

  more to fear than the deadly plants and animals that populated the

  lowest levels of the forest.

  Jaina could feel that something was about to happen. "No time to lose!"

  she urged. She picked up her pace. Chewbacca, sensing her urgency, did

  the same, barely taking time to rest his foot on one limb before

  bounding down to a lower branch.

  In the distance Jaina heard a shout, a human voice that sounded loud and

  ebilling, mixed with the wild noises. When she stopped to look in that

  direction, she saw flickers of light and heard the sizzle of blaster

  fire.

  Just then, the rotting branch beneath her feet creaked and threatened to

  give way. In her haste, she had not bothered to check the branch before

  stepping on it. Chewbacca spun and reached out to pull her to safety on

  a thicker branch closer to the trunk. She scrambled for purchase.

  But the whole side of the wroshyr tree must have been weakened by rot or

  disease, for at that moment the bough on which the large Wookiee stood

  gave way as well. Snapping and popping, the gnarled wood dropped out

  from beneath him.

  Jaina watched, her mouth open in a silent scream, as Chewbacca

  plummeted, crashing into the darkness below. -----------------EXHAUSTED,

  ZEKK STOOD with the lightsaber still gripped in his sweaty hand. He

  found it hard to breathe the thick, cloying air of the underworld.

  The smoking carcass of the dead slug beast, now sliced in pieces, lay

  draped across the overspreading branches. Burned slime bubbled with a

  noxious stench. Small fires crackled from stray blaster bolts that had

  ignited portions of the dense foliage. The surviving stormtroopers

  shouted to each other over helmet comlinks, completing their damage

  assessment.

  Vonnda Ra stood trembling, jaw set, face drawn, as if the fury she had

  unleashed to fight the monster had drained her somehow.

  The new Nightsisters were supposedly proof against the physically

  damaging effects of the evil powers they invoked, but the tremendous

  battle Vonnda Ra and Zekk and the stormtroopers had waged against the

  mindless slug had left her.looking shriveled.

  Zekk slumped against an upright tree trunk, feeling the soft squish of

  blue moss mixed with ichor from the slug creature.

  Only four stormtroopers remained with their party. The slug beast had

  crushed the others or flung them into the unseen depths below. Chunks of

  the dead thing sloughed off the main branches, oozing down to where

  rodents and scavengers rustled through the darkness in a feeding frenzy.

  Zekk heard a crash and a crackle of snapping twigs far behind them.

  Suddenly, with a tingle through his own Force senses, he knew that two

  others followed, attempting to catch them-and he identified one of the

  pursuers.

  In astonishment, he blinked his green eyes into the forest shadows,

  reaching out with the focused power of his senses.

  "It's Jaina Solo," he said to Vonnda Ra.

  'Behind us. She's coming this way." He planted his black boots firmly on

  the branch. He had t
o choose, but he could not. With all of Brakiss's

  promises, he had never thought it would be so difficult.

  Ahead Jacen, Lowbacca, Sirra, and Tenel Ka had succeeded in eluding

  Imperial pursuit so far-but Jaina, completely unaware, was heading

  straight toward them. He would have to confront her himself "We must

  split up," Zekk said. "I will go back alone and stop Jaina. The rest of

  you, continue after these others."

  "Yes." Peering ahead into the forest maze, Vonnda Ra seethed. "I'll make

  them pay for what they've done to us!"

  With a gesture of her clawed hand, the Nightsister and the remaining

  stormtroopers set off after the young Jedi Knights.

  Though Jacen fought to stay within sight of his companions, this deep

  level of the forest had become so dark he felt as if he were swimming

  through a pool of ink. Finally, surprisingly, the depths began to

  shimmer with wonder. He noticed the cold illumination of phosphorescent

  organisms, glowing insects, pulsing fungi and lichens that threw

  heatless chemical light into the smothering darkness.

  All around him in the branches and leaves he could see spangles like

  starlight, as ifinstead of being deep within a dense foresthe stood on a

  sprawling plain under a clear night sky. Jacen found it breathtaking,

  and nudged Tenel Ka's warm arm to get her attention. The immensity of it