Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy II: Dark Apprentice

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Shuffling footsteps came toward them—a thud, then a scrape as a large hulking creature emerged from the depths of the lair. The silhouette appeared first, a massive tufted head with enormous arms dragging almost to the ground. One thickly muscled thigh looked the size of a tree trunk, but the other leg was much shorter, twisted and withered.

  Jacen and Jaina rattled the sharp metal edges of the cage, but the mechanical claws drew tighter together like scissors. “Help!” Jacen said.

  Then their captor came into full view, lit from the side by reflected smoky lights. The creature was covered with a pelt of shaggy hair, showing no distinction between its enormous head and the rest of its torso, as if both pieces had been smashed together into one barrel-shaped mass.

  The thing’s mouth hung in a long crooked slash, twisted sideways and straightened back only partway. Its left eye was overgrown with a mass of tumors and rotting flesh; the other eye, nearly as large as the twins’ fists, shone a sickly yellow, streaked with red lines.

  Jacen and Jaina were too afraid to say anything. Their ogrelike captor shambled past, ignoring them for the moment as he rocked back and forth on his stubby withered leg. He picked up the small trap to inspect the frantic spider-roach.

  The children could smell the stink from the monster as he next bent toward the bars of their cage, thrusting his giant yellow eye close, but Jacen and Jaina scrambled to the other side of the cage.

  The ogre disconnected long chains from the wall, draped them over his shoulder, and dragged the twins’ cage clattering down the corridor into his firelit den. The cage rolled and crashed against unseen obstacles, and the twins had to scramble to keep themselves upright.

  Inside, gnawed bones from large and small creatures cluttered the monster’s lair, some piled in baskets, others cracked and strewn over the broken floor. Smoky red flames came from smoldering pots filled with a rancid-smelling fat.

  Chained in a cleared area of the pit sat a tusked ratlike creature covered with bristling fur. Its black rubbery lips stretched back in a perpetual snarl. Gobbets of drool flew from its mouth as it snarled and threw itself to the end of its chain.

  A set of broken manacles from a detention area hung on the spike-encrusted walls of the chamber. As the ogre moved about in the brighter light, tatters of an old prison uniform could be seen among his greasy curls of body hair.

  The ogre pried open the metal fingers of the small spider-roach trap. He picked up the arachnid with his lumpy bare hands and tossed it to the giant rat-monster. The glossy spider-roach flailed its long legs as it tumbled end over end, and the rat-monster snapped it out of the air. But the bug managed to grab on to the rubbery lips with its sharp legs, and it stung hard.

  The rat-creature yelped, gnashing its tusks until it chomped down and split the exoskeleton of the spider-roach with a cracking pop. Then, contented, it slurped the juicy soft meat and licked its black lips. The rat-creature panted and rolled its wet red eyes at the two children.

  Hopeful, the twins peered out from the cage. “We are lost,” Jaina said, calling to the ogre from between the bars.

  “Please help us find our home,” Jacen added.

  The ogre fixed its yellow eye on them. A foul wet stench came from his mouth, like slime scraped from the bottoms of a thousand sewers. He spoke in a bubbling voice, slurring the words. “No,” the ogre said. “Gonna eat you!”

  Then he tottered off on his shriveled leg toward a smoldering fireplace. The ogre found a pair of long sharp tongs resting in the hot coals. Holding the implements high, the ogre turned back to the twins.

  Jacen and Jaina both looked at the top of their cage. The articulated finger joints were held together by small pins clogged with grease and rust, but smooth enough that the cage could open and close.

  The twins each knew which pins the other concentrated on—and used their rudimentary ability with the Force, just as they did when they played tricks on Threepio and played the games that their Uncle Luke showed them.

  They popped out the cage pins two at a time in rapid succession. Small pieces of metal flew like tiny projectiles in all directions. Suddenly without support, the long metal fingers fell open to the ground with an incredible clang.

  “Run!” Jacen cried. Jaina took his hand and they scrambled toward the tunnel.

  The ogre let out a furious roar and stumped after them, but he could not keep up on his uneven legs. Instead he grabbed the thick chain holding the rat-monster to the wall and yanked out the long spike that held its collar together.

  Set free, the rat-creature lunged. Turning, it tried to snap its teeth at the ogre—but he used a muscle-swollen arm to bash the rat-thing away from him. He gestured toward the fleeing children.

  And they ran, and they ran.

  The rat-creature came howling and slavering after them. The twins ran out of the firelit opening and dashed down an alley. Behind them they could hear the steam-engine sounds of the creature as it snorted, following their scent. Its claws clattered on the pavement.

  Jaina found a small dark gash in the wall, a hole broken into the layered duracrete. “Here,” she said.

  Jaina dived into the tiny hole headfirst, and her brother clambered after. Only a second later the rat-creature jammed its tusked snout against the jagged opening, but it could not get its head through the hole.

  By that time Jacen and Jaina had scrambled on their hands and knees, burrowing deep into the unexplored darkness.

  “Oh, we never should have agreed to baby-sit!” Threepio wailed. “I wonder how often baby-sitters actually lose their children.” Chewbacca growled at him.

  “Why didn’t you listen to me, Chewbacca? Mistress Leia will have all your fur shaved off so she can make a new rug. You will be the first bald Wookiee in history.”

  Chewbacca bellowed a suggestion as they stormed down the corridors, still searching the Holographic Zoo for Extinct Animals.

  “You can go to the control room if you like. I think we should sound the alarm here and now. It is perfectly acceptable to summon help. This is an emergency.”

  Threepio found the fire alarm and activated it with one golden hand; next, he searched among the holographic exhibits until he also found a security alarm. Without hesitation he pressed the button. “There, that should do it.”

  Chewbacca growled in Threepio’s face with enough force that the droid’s audio sensors shut down to reset themselves. Then he manhandled Threepio in his furred Wookiee arms, carrying him bodily down the hall at a fast lope.

  “All right, have it your way, then,” Threepio said. “We’ll go to the control center and shut down all the holograms.”

  Jacen and Jaina felt the slimy surface of the tunnel as they crawled downward. They had no idea where they were going, but they knew they had to find some other way home.

  Jacen reached up, felt no close ceiling, and climbed to his feet. The twins could see nothing in the darkness, only a faint glow ahead. They made their way toward it—cautiously this time, afraid they might find another ogre. Jacen smelled sizzling meat, and he heard guttural words, the first human voices they had heard since deciding to go home without Threepio and Chewbacca.

  Jacen started toward the light, but Jaina held on to his arm. “Careful,” she said. Jacen nodded and put a finger to his lips as a reminder. They inched forward, hearts hammering. They smelled the delicious scents of cooked food, heard the crackle of fire, the chattering voices.

  They reached a corner and peered around it to see a large blasted-out room, a low-level reception area used thousands of years ago. Jacen and Jaina could see a bonfire, tattered figures moving between light and shadow, banks of dimly functioning glowcrystals, and a glimpse of blinking computer equipment. Then suddenly, from all sides, silent hands reached out to grab them.

  Firm grips, wiry arms. Five sentries struck at once, snatching Jacen and Jaina and whisking them off their feet before they had a chance to struggle.

  The sentries laughed even as the children squealed in te
rror. A cheer went up from the people around the bonfire as the sentries carried the twins out into the bright light.

  Alarms pulsed and whooped in the control center of the Holographic Zoo. Red signals flashed; yellow lights blinked on and off in indecipherable patterns.

  Threepio was impressed at the commotion he had managed to cause just by activating a few security systems.

  The zoo’s control droid sat in the center of an octagonal computer bank. It had a spherical head encircled by optical sensors mounted every thirty-six degrees. From its central station the control droid sprouted eight segmented limbs that scrambled over the panels, pecking at the buttons in a blur of motion like fire-linked blaster cannons.

  “Permission denied,” the control droid said to them.

  Chewbacca roared, but the control droid merely spun its spherical head and ignored the Wookiee’s outburst.

  “I feel required to warn you,” Threepio said to the other droid, “that when Wookiees lose their tempers they are known to rip limbs out of their sockets. I believe Chewbacca here is on the verge of losing his temper.”

  Chewbacca leaned forward on one of the segmented control panels, gripped it with his hairy paws, and roared again into one set of the multiple eyes.

  “Permission still denied,” the control droid said.

  “But you don’t understand!” Threepio insisted. “There are two lost children inside your Holographic Zoo. If you would just shut down the image generators, we could search the habitats and find them.”

  “Unacceptable,” the control droid said. “It would cause too great a disturbance among the other guests.”

  Threepio indignantly propped his metallic arms on his hips. “But the zoo looked empty when we toured it. How many other patrons are currently using the facility?”

  “Irrelevant,” the control droid said. “Such an action is strictly forbidden except in conditions of extreme emergency.”

  Threepio waved his golden hands in the air. “But this is an emergency!”

  Chewbacca had apparently had enough of formal requests. He bunched his fists together and brought them down on the first control bank, smashing the glossy black coverings and shattering circuit connections.

  Sparks flew. The control droid’s head spun around like a planet knocked out of its orbit. “Excuse me,” the control droid said, “please don’t touch the controls,”

  Chewbacca went to the second segment of the octagonal board and smashed it as well. The control droid flailed its eight articulated limbs, trying to bypass circuits in the remaining systems.

  “I must admit, Chewbacca, that your enthusiasm makes up for any lack of finesse,” Threepio said.

  In no time the Wookiee had ruined the entire set of panels. Without a single functioning hologram-generating system, the control droid folded all eight of its articulated arms like a dead insect and seemed to sulk.

  Chewbacca yanked Threepio’s mechanical arm and hauled him back down to the holographic habitats. Now every chamber was empty, white-tiled walls with strategically mounted hologram generators at the vertices of the room. Various guests had dropped garbage in among the illusions, refreshment wrappers, torn scraps of paper, and half-eaten nonorganic treats that had failed to decompose.

  “Jacen! Jaina!” Threepio called.

  Alarms continued to squawk as Chewbacca and Threepio passed from one habitat to the next. Threepio called up the data brochure inside his computer brain and guided the search, methodically moving from one room to another. Every cell in the deactivated Holographic Zoo looked identical, and they found the children in none of them.

  When they finally hurried to the last chamber, hoping against hope that they would discover the twins crouched in the corner and waiting to be rescued, they were suddenly met by the New Republic militia charging toward them in response to all the alarms.

  “Halt!” the captain of the guard said.

  Threepio instantly counted eighteen humans, all wearing blaster-proof armor. The militia members drew their weapons and leveled them.

  In all his adventures Threepio couldn’t recall ever having seen so many blaster barrels pointed directly at him.

  “Oh, my!” he said.

  The feral humans brought Jacen and Jaina before their king. The flickering warmth of the junk-heap bonfire made a pleasant smell. The strips of unrecognizeable meat roasting on long skewers caused both children to lick their lips.

  Grimy-faced sentries looked down at the twins and smiled. Their mouths seemed a checkerboard of yellow teeth and black gaps. The king of the underground humans sat on a tall pile of ragged cushions. He laughed. “These are the fearsome intruders?”

  Jacen and Jaina looked around themselves, gathering details. The refugees in the former reception area had bedrolls, tattered clothing, and stashes of scavenged possessions. Some sat mending rags, others worked on spring-loaded animal traps. Two old men crouched holding small musical instruments cobbled together from old pipes; they blew into the mouthpieces, comparing high whistling notes.

  The feral people wore torn and threadbare clothing, some mended, some not, all very old. They had long hair; the men wore bushy beards. Their skin was pale, as if they had not seen sunlight for decades. Some of them might never have seen natural light at all.

  The king seemed to have the best materials. He wore shoulder pads and polished white gloves taken from a stormtrooper. His eyebrows were large, his reddish-brown beard wispy. Though his face was the color of raw bread dough, his eyes were bright and alert. His smile also showed gaps from missing teeth, but it contained real humor.

  Around and behind the king hung jury-rigged electronic equipment, computer panels, holographic display modules, even one old-model food-processing unit. Ancient generators had been wired into the frayed energy grid of the skyscrapers, skimming power from the main flow through Imperial City. The lost people had obviously been down here a long time.

  “Get these children some food,” the king yelled, bending down to look at them. “Well, now, my name is Daykim. What’re your names?”

  “Jaina,” Jacen said, indicating his sister.

  Jaina pointed to her brother. “Jacen.”

  A sentry with gray-blond hair tied in a long ponytail brought a smoking skewer of the roasted meat. He yanked off the red-black pieces of meat with his fingers and dropped them onto a squarish metal platter that had originally been some sort of cover plate. The sentry blew on his fingers, licked the juices, and grinned at the children. He set the platter down in front of them, and the twins sat on the floor, crossing their legs.

  “Blow on the meat before you put it in your mouths,” the king said. “It’s hot.”

  The twins picked up small morsels, dutifully blowing until the meat was cool enough to chew. King Daykim seemed to delight in just watching them.

  “So what were you doing down here all alone? It’s dangerous, you know. Would you like to stay here with us?” the king said. “We’re all growing old. It’s been too long since young people joined us down here.”

  Jacen and Jaina shook their heads. “We are lost,” Jaina said around a mouthful of meat. A thick welling of tears appeared on the edge of her eyelids.

  Jacen also started to cry. “Please help us find our home,” he said, looking toward the high ceiling. Somewhere up in the distance lay their living quarters.

  “Up there?” King Daykim said, comically incredulous. “Why would you want to go back up there? The Emperor lives up there. He’s a bad man.” Daykim shook his head and gestured around him. “We have everything we want here. We have food, we have light, we have … our things.”

  Jacen shook his head at Daykim. “I want to go home.”

  With a sigh Daykim glanced back at his banks of computer terminals and then flashed them a defeated smile.

  “Of course you want to go home. Just finish up your supper. You’ll need your strength.”

  The sergeant of the militia escorted Threepio and Chewbacca back to Han and Leia’s quarters i
n the old Imperial Palace. “Our records indicate that Minister Organa Solo and her husband returned not more than an hour ago,” the sergeant said.

  Chewbacca moaned dejectedly. Threepio shot a sharp glance at him. “I think you should be the one to tell them what happened, Chewbacca. After all, I’m only a droid.”

  “Rest assured we’re doing everything we can,” the sergeant said. “We’ve had our teams combing the Holographic Zoo and the adjoining floors just in case the twins found an emergency staircase. We’re checking the logs of the maintenance droid just to be sure that no one used the turbolift that was being serviced.” He snapped to attention. “We’ll find them, don’t you worry.”

  Threepio used the override code on the doorway to open it. Then he and Chewbacca stepped into the living quarters—to find Han and Leia sitting on the self-conforming chairs, with the twins balanced on their knees.

  “Children! Oh, thank goodness, you’re home!” Threepio cried. Chewbacca thundered a high-pitched bellow.

  Han and Leia both turned to look at them. “Well, there you two are.”

  Threepio noticed at once that one of the panels from the air-ventilation system had been knocked off, apparently from the inside. A stranger, a large man, dressed in tattered but ornate clothing dashed to shelter behind one of the larger pieces of furniture. He had long reddish-brown hair, a wispy beard, and uncommonly pale skin,

  Leia returned her attention to the rag-clad man. “Seriously, Mr. Daykim, I can’t tell you how much we appreciate what you’ve done. I assure you the New Republic will do everything it can to repatriate all your people.”

  Daykim shook his head. “The Emperor never forgave mistakes, not even accounting mistakes. We saw many of our fellow civil servants either executed or sent off to horrendous penal colonies. As soon as we caught ourselves in a simple but irrevocable filing error, we knew we didn’t have long to live—so we grabbed what we could and fled to the underlevels of Imperial City. My people have been living there for years. We’re just a bunch of feral bureaucrats who don’t know any other life.”