by Troy Denning
After confirming that both towers were sealed as tightly as had been the other buildings, Jaina went to inspect the pit. It was about three meters deep from the foot of the wall, with a muddy bottom littered by crushed bones and animal skulls. Pressed into the thin mud were the impressions of dozens of huge paddle-shaped feet, always arranged in pairs on either side of a long serpentine depression.
The back of the pit extended beneath the cliff, creating a large cave beneath the hill. Deep within the cave, Jaina sensed a cluster of semi-intelligent presences.
Zekk came to her side and peered over the wall, then made a sour face at the smell. “I hope that isn’t the only way in.”
“Can’t be.” Jaina pointed at the strange tracks pressed into the mud at the bottom of the pit. “No people feet.”
“And I don’t see the Ducha crawling through the mud just to avoid us, either.” Zekk turned his attention to the towers beside the pit. “The entrance must be in one of those.”
He started toward the nearest tower, holding his light-saber and clearly intending to cut his way inside.
“Hold on,” Jaina said. “Let’s not do any more damage than we have to—Ducha Galney is supposed to be one of Tenel Ka’s most loyal allies.”
She turned to Zar, who had finally stopped protesting but was continuing to follow the two Jedi through the compound. “How do we get into the emergency shelter?” Jaina asked. “You can help us, or you can explain to Ducha Galney why we had to cut our way in.”
Zar frowned in confusion. “Emergency shelter?”
She had barely spoken before a chorus of shrill squeals rang out from the pit. Jaina and Zekk spun around to find six creatures—at least that was the number of mouths Jaina saw—spilling out of the cave in a slimy gray tangle. They were about as long as speeder bikes, with thick tubular bodies, stubby legs, and flipper-shaped feet.
As soon as they saw Jaina and Zekk, they launched themselves against the side of the pit. They hit belly-first and clawed frantically at the stone, dragging themselves up high enough to thrust their round-nosed heads over the wall, snapping and screeching at the two Jedi.
Jaina and Zekk retreated a step and ignited their lightsabers—then were nearly knocked over as Zar pushed between them, placing herself between the lightsabers and the creatures from the pit.
“No! Please!” She spun and faced the two Jedi, extending her arms to protect the strange creatures. “I’ll tell you anything you want—just don’t hurt my babies!”
The creatures began to squeal more excitedly than ever, their heads bobbing up and behind Zar as they licked at her ears and arms, coating her head and shoulders with stringy yellow slime.
Jaina wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Your babies?”
“They’re the Ducha’s favorite hunting murgs,” Zar said. “I’m their handler.”
Zekk deactivated his lightsaber. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re not going to hurt—”
“As long as you help us,” Jaina interrupted. She sensed Zekk’s immediate disapproval, but stepped closer to Zar anyway. Sometimes Zekk was just too kriffing honorable for his own good. “Why is the Ducha hiding from us?”
“She’s not hiding,” Zar said. “I told you. She was so offended by your arrival that she decided to leave.”
“She decided to leave after we arrived?” Zekk asked. “You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Zar continued to hold her arms out protectively. “After your sonic booms intruded on her serenity, she summoned me to say that she and the rest of the household would be departing. I was to stay and care for my babies—the murgs—and see to it that you didn’t steal anything.”
“Steal anything?” Jaina began to have a sinking feeling. “Did the Ducha know who we were?”
“She said ‘the Jedi.’ ” Zar’s arms began to tremble, and her gaze fell on Jaina’s still-ignited lightsaber. “Please don’t hurt my babies. It’s not their fault.”
“Nobody’s going to hurt your murgs,” Zekk said. He frowned at Jaina. “Right?”
Jaina deactivated her blade. “I guess.” To Zar, she said, “But you’ve got to show us how to reach the hang—”
A low rumble sounded from deep inside the hill. An instant later the almond-shaped silhouette of a Hapan luxury yacht shot into view and began to climb skyward on a pillar of blue efflux. Jaina stretched her Force-awareness into the hangar and felt only emptiness.
“Zar,” she asked, “is it customary for the Ducha to take the entire household when she departs Villa Solis?”
“Not at all,” Zar replied. “About twenty of us stay here all the time. There’s a lot to care for besides the murgs.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Jaina uttered a silent curse, then asked, “Have you noticed the fleet orbiting Terephon?”
“A good pilot always keeps one eye on the sky,” Zar said indignantly. “Besides, they’ve been sending fighter squadrons down to be refitted all week.”
“All week?” Zekk repeated.
Zar frowned and started to count days on her fingers. “Yes, all—”
“Never mind,” Jaina said. She turned to Zekk. “Before she could know about the coup attempt.”
“There was a coup attempt?” Zar asked. “We never hear anything on Terephon.”
Zekk put a hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the nearest tower. “Go. Find someplace safe.”
Jaina frowned. “You think the Ducha is going to hit her own villa?”
“I know she is.” Zekk tipped his head toward Zar, who had so far refused to leave. “If you needed to leave a decoy behind, who would it be?”
“Me?” Zar shook her head emphatically. “Never. I’m the Ducha’s favorite riding companion!”
Jaina ignored Zar’s protest and nodded to Zekk. “I see your point,” she said. The Ducha had started to mobilize her fleet before the coup attempt, which meant she had been one of its architects, and that was clearly a secret worth protecting—especially since Tenel Ka still seemed to think the Galney family was loyal. “But I don’t know that she’d level her own hunting villa just to get us.”
“We’re Jedi,” Zekk countered. “And you know what it would mean to her if we get away. She has to be sure.”
“Okay.” Jaina had only to recall a few HoloNet accounts of miraculous Jedi escapes to know Zekk was right. The Ducha would be terrified that if they survived any attempts to kill them, they would warn Tenel Ka of her involvement in the coup. She turned to go. “Let’s get back to the—”
Jaina stopped when two hulking forms stepped out from behind a dwelling. They had wedge-shaped torsos, massive systems-packed arms, and gray laminanium armor. With red photoreceptors gleaming from the socket mountings of their distinctive death’s-head faces, there was no mistaking the droids’ make.
“Why-Vees!” Jaina’s heart leapt into her throat. Even Jedi were a poor match for the accuracy and ferocious firepower of YVH battle droids. She and Zekk ignited their lightsabers. “Uncle Luke better have a talk with Lando about who he’s selling those things to.”
Zar frowned at their hissing blades. “No need for that, Jedi Solo. They’re just watch droids.” She stepped forward, blocking the droids’ line of fire. “You two stand down. These guests were just leaving.”
“Negative.” The closer droid raised the arm containing its blaster cannon. “Please clear an attack lane. Intruders are designated targets.”
Zar placed her hands on her hips. “I decide who the targets are around here, Two-Twenty. I’m the one the Ducha left in charge.”
“Uh, Entora,” Jaina said. “Maybe you’d better listen—”
Jaina was cut off by the rapid whomping of a blaster cannon, and suddenly there was blood and hot light everywhere. Knowing better than to allow the droids to concentrate their ferocious firepower, she and Zekk sprang away in opposite directions, tumbling through the air in a wild helix of twists and flips, relying on the Force to stay one eye-blink ahead of the droids’ targeting
computers.
A tremendous cracking echoed through the compound as cannon fire struck the wall around the murg pit, spraying rock chips and superheated dust everywhere. Jaina came down four meters away and rolled into a somersault, then launched herself into a long, arcing spiral. There were so many bolts the air seemed about to burst into flame, and twice she had to use her lightsaber to deflect attacks that came so close she thought half her face would melt.
A cacophony of ear-piercing shrieks sounded behind her, almost as loud as the droids’ blaster cannons. Jaina hit the ground rolling and somersaulted into cover behind the wall of the first building she could find.
She spun to face her attackers and was surprised to glimpse a string of slimy gray forms clambering through a smoking breach in the murg pit wall. The creatures’ eyes were open wide, they were trailing long strings of yellow drool, and—given their ungainly form and misshaped legs—they were slithering into the compound with a speed Jaina could only think of as astonishing.
A volley of cannon bolts tore into the building she was using for cover—then abruptly went wide. She peered around the corner and saw that the pack of fleeing murgs had slammed headlong into the battle droids. Most had clamped their powerful jaws around a droid’s leg or arm and were struggling to drag it down, but the smallest was holding what remained of Zar’s lifeless body in its mouth and circling the melee, apparently trying to carry her to safety.
Jaina glanced across the courtyard at Zekk, who was also crouched behind a building, studying the situation. She reached out to him in the Force and knew instantly they were both thinking the same thing: Go while the going is good.
Zekk nodded toward her, then rolled in the opposite direction and disappeared behind the building. Jaina did likewise, racing down a twisting pathway that led more or less in the direction of the gate.
She pulled her comlink and opened a direct channel to Sneaker. “Hardfire those engines! We’re coming back hot and need to be at takeoff power fast.”
Sneaker replied with an irritated whistle.
“No time to explain—just do it!” Jaina ordered.
Though Jaina couldn’t really understand beep code, it was easy enough to guess her astromech’s objection. Because they were running low on fuel, Jaina and Zekk had shut their StealthXs down without burning off the supply in the preheating cell. Hardfiring the engines now meant forcing cold fuel into the combustion chambers, and that would mean a complete overhaul—assuming, of course, the engines lasted long enough to return to base.
Jaina was about halfway back to the gate when the murgs flashed across an adjacent intersection, now chortling and squawking in excitement. A moment later she heard hissing servomotors and knew one of the battle droids had found her. She dodged around a bend, barely escaping death as a flurry of cannon bolts blasted a meter-wide hole through a gratenite wall.
The battle droid pounded after her, its blaster cannon continuing to punch black stars into the building at her back. When Jaina came to the next intersection, she used the Force to send a rock clattering down the walkway toward the gate, then deactivated her lightsaber, ducked around the opposite side of the building, and dropped to her belly on the cold walkway.
It seemed to take the battle droid forever to arrive. Jaina began to worry that despite her precautions, it had detected her heat signature with a thermal-imaging sweep, or had perhaps picked up the pounding of her pulse through an acoustic analysis. She concentrated on her breathing, trying to quiet her heart with a relaxation exercise she rarely used.
From the other side of the compound came the sound of Zekk’s battle against his own pursuer—his lightsaber droning in muffled counterpoint to the rapid crump of the battle droid’s blaster cannon. Even more troubling was the fear and uncertainty Jaina felt through the Force, the growing desperation as the droid continued to press its assault. She began to fear Zekk was not going to make it; that the time had come to see if she could slip away from her own attacker and take Zekk’s by surprise.
And that was when the distant roar of an atmospheric entry crackled down from the sky. Jaina craned her neck and quickly found a dozen bright efflux tails streaking from the stars. She thought for a moment the Ducha was sending a squadron of Miy’tils down to support the battle droids—but realized there was another, more important target for the starfighters.
Jaina pulled her comlink, intending to warn her astromech that the StealthX was about to come under attack, then heard servomotors hissing around the bend—exactly as she had planned.
But the battle droid was being uncharacteristically cautious, taking time to sweep the area with its sensors, alert to the possibility of an ambush. Jaina held her breath and pressed herself tighter to the ground, trying to stay calm, trying to slow her breathing and her heart. The droid had probably switched from an attack routine to a stalking routine, and if she could not control her bodily responses, they would give her away.
For the next few moments, Jaina could do nothing but lie on the ground and listen to the roar of the Miy’tils grow louder. The sound of Zekk’s lightsaber began to fade as his fight drifted toward the gate, and she could sense his growing desperation through their combatmeld. By now, he had to be using the Force to keep himself going. Soon his skin would begin to nettle with the effects of drawing on the Force too heavily … and then he would simply stop.
Zekk would rather die than risk a brush with the dark side, and that was one of the things that frustrated Jaina about him. To him, a thing was either right or wrong, good or evil, and that made every choice simple. Either you loved someone or you didn’t. There was no room for uncertainty, no room to be confused about how you felt—to wonder where the boundary lay between a lifelong friendship and love … or even if there was one.
Finally a pair of metallic footfalls sounded from the other side of the building. Jaina remained where she was, working harder than ever to quiet her heart and her breathing. The droid would be going into a flushing routine now, and it would be alert to the possibility of attack.
Another trio of footfalls sounded from the other side of the building, then a whole series. Jaina rose as quietly as possible, then slipped around the bend and saw the battle droid moving down another walkway toward the gate. She started after it, running as silently as was possible, her lightsaber still deactivated but cocked to strike.
She was almost there when the droid pivoted, presenting its flank and fixing its red photoreceptors on her face. Its arm came up, and Jaina’s throat cramped with fear as she found herself looking down the barrel of a blaster cannon.
She dropped into a slide, and a stream of colored bolts crumped past so close she felt her skin blistering beneath its heat. The droid lowered its arm, blasting head-sized craters out of the walkway as it tried to track her. Jaina activated her lightsaber and slammed the blade into its knee as hard as she could.
The leg came off in a shower of sparks and hydraulic fluid, and the droid crashed down almost on top of her, jamming the cannon barrel against the ground and blowing its own arm apart as it continued to fire.
A spray of hot shrapnel sliced into Jaina’s back and neck. She continued her slide, using the Force to pull herself free, then switched off her lightsaber and sprang to her feet a couple of meters down the walkway. She raced around the bend just ahead of a mini missile that reduced five meters of gratenite wall to crashing rubble.
Once Jaina’s ears had stopped ringing, she was relieved to hear the boom-boom-boom of a grenade volley coming from the other side of the villa. She reached out to Zekk through their battle-meld and sensed his presence somewhere ahead, near the gate. There was no way to tell exactly what had happened, but from the sounds of it he, too, had found a way to cripple the droid chasing him. They were going to make it back to the StealthXs, after all.
Then a long series of sonic booms shook the villa, and Jaina looked up to see the Miy’tils streaking down toward the StealthXs. She pulled her comlink and opened a channel to her astromech.
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“Sneaker, bring up the shields. And tell—”
She was interrupted by a negative chirp.
Of course—with all that cold congealed fuel in the system, even hardfiring the engines would not have them at full power yet. “All right, Sneaker. Just do your—”
The astromech’s acknowledging tweedle vanished in the thundering crash of a missile detonation. A brilliant flash lit the sky outside the villa, then several more detonations came, each brighter than the last—and all in the approximate area of the StealthXs.
By the time the explosions stopped, Jaina had reached the front courtyard of the villa. The gate had been closed, and the murgs were clawing at it in such a panic, they had gouged the hard crodium. Zekk was standing atop the wall, staring out toward a plume of black smoke. Even had Jaina not sensed his frustration, she would have known by the angry cloud on his face that their starfighters had been destroyed.
A distant roar sounded out over the bog, and Jaina looked up to the see the Miy’tils wheeling around for another pass. She raced forward and Force-sprang over the murg pack, then came down atop the wall next to Zekk. Where their StealthXs had been, there were now six smoking craters.
“We’d better get out of here,” Jaina said. She turned her attention back to the sky and saw that the Miy’tils were already diving back toward the villa. “You were right about the Ducha—when it comes to Jedi, she doesn’t think there’s any such thing as overkill.”
“There isn’t,” Zekk said darkly. “And when we find a way off of this mudball, I’m going to hunt her down and prove it.”
Instead of jumping down outside the wall and running for cover in the bogs, he dropped back inside the wall and shoved through the screeching murgs toward the gate controls.
“Are you crazy?” Jaina cried from the top of the wall. “Those Miy’tils will be dropping bombs in about five seconds.”