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Under A Black Sun Trilogy

Page 11

by Kevin J. Anderson


  distrust.

  "My name is Ynos," the man said. "I'm what passes for a leader in this

  group of villagers, though we're mostly starving and we don't amount to

  much of anything."

  "If you're starving then why aren't you out working the fields?"

  Jaina asked. "There seems to be plenty of cropland, and it's a

  beautiful day."

  "Because we're afraid to," Ynos said, his lips twisting in an angry

  snarl. "The mountain miners have ruined all of our fertile land.

  There was a time when we harvested enough to keep us fat, with plenty

  left over for trading with the miners, as well as for export

  offworld.

  Now we barely scrape by with our tiny gardens here."

  He gestured to small patches of plants outside the ramshackle homes.

  "A few of our people have tried to clear some of our old acreage, but

  it's a dangerous task. The cursed miners plant burrowing detonators

  everywhere."

  Jaina shuddered. She had heard about mobile robotic explosives that

  tunneled into the ground and waited there for someone-anyone-to

  unwittingly step on them.

  "Some of our braver young men and women venture into the forests to

  hunt for food, but even the trees and shrubs are booby-trapped with

  deadly pits and trip wires. Sometimes our hunters don't come back."

  Several villagers sighed or smothered soft moans of despair.

  "It is only a matter of time before we're all wiped out," Ynos said.

  "Then the mountain villagers will have won the war."

  "Unless we kill them first," said one brash young helper.

  "And then we will all be dead anyway," Ynos replied in a heavy voice.

  Tenel Ka looked at the man and studied his stump of a leg. She seemed

  to feel a camaraderie with Ynos, though her injury had been caused by

  an accident, and his by an act of war. "There is no honor in such

  destruction. Only cowards kill those they cannot see. And only a fool

  kills when there are other options."

  Ynos sighed and looked around at the squalid village. Jaina followed

  his gaze. Her heart went out to the desperate workers in the nearby

  fields. She saw a few figures moving slowly, taking each step with

  meticulous care.

  A sudden wash of dread flooded through her. All the young Jedi Knights

  whirled and focused on the same field, sensing the dangerjust as one of

  the distant farmers stepped forward. An explosion ripped under his

  feet, sending up a cloud of dust and dirt shards, along with an

  incinerating heat.

  The scattered workers in the fields screamed. Some froze in utter

  terror, while others ran blindly back along the narrow, well-packed

  trails that led safely through the cropland. The villagers lurched

  into motion, rushing toward the field.

  Anakin popped back into the Falcon and emerged a moment later carrying

  the medikit. Tenel Ka ran like a hunting cat, with Anja pacing her

  step for step, as if it were some kind of a competition rather than a

  race to rescue an injured man who had stepped on a burrowing

  detonator.

  "Be careful!" Ynos shouted, limping behind them as the other young

  Jedi ran. At the edge of the fields, many of the farmers stopped to

  embrace those who had successfully made it onto safe ground. The young

  Jedi Knights followed the narrow footpaths. Jaina could see where

  other detonators had left craters and pockmarks in the fields,

  uprooting precious crops, leaving their poisonous residue as a chemical

  stain on the once-fertile dirt.

  Ahead, Jaina saw the mangled body of the man who had been hurled high

  by the explosion and dropped back down among the rocks and clods of

  dirt. His clothes were torn, his face and limbs scorched from the

  blast. Blood seeped from massive injuries in his legs and chest. The

  man groaned. Jaina and her companions rushed to his side.

  "Saw it...... the man groaned, " saw it coming toward me ...

  jumped." He gasped for breath, and Jaina thought she could hear his

  ribs cracking as he inhaled. "Not fast enough. This place ...

  infested with burrowers."

  Han came up, panting. "Looks bad. Can we get him back to the Falcon's

  medical bay?"

  Anakin opened the medikit, but the mangled man shuddered. Blood still

  oozed from his wounds. A moment later, he collapsed backward with a

  convulsion. Jaina could tell without checking that he had died.

  Just then Ynos hobbled up on his mechanical leg and looked down at the

  dead man. He assessed the injuries with narrowed eyes and nodded

  grimly. "Perhaps it's best he died quickly. He'd never have

  recovered, and he would have hated being crippled."

  "That is not for us to judge," Tenel Ka said. "We cannot know what he

  might have contributed-even with a handicap-had he survived."

  Ynos shook his shaggy head in despair. "There will be more deaths and

  injuries like this. Many more, and there's nothing we can do about

  it.

  The miners buy burrowing detonators and turn them loose in our fields

  faster than we can clear them. We'll never have happy lives again.

  We'll all starve."

  Han Solo forced an optimistic expression and put a hand on the old

  man's shoulder as three farmers gently carried their friend's body

  away.

  "You won't starve tonight. The Falcon has plenty of food packs in its

  prep unit. I can make you all a decent meal, something to give you

  strength. It's not much, but it's the best we can do right now."

  Ynos looked at them, hunger in his eyes. Jaina could see he

  desperately wanted to accept the offer.

  "No argument," Han said, before the limping man could think of anything

  to say.

  One by one, the other villagers approached, eyes still wide with horror

  at the death they had witnessed, but ready to see how Han and the young

  Jedi Knights intended to help them.

  Before Han Solo and the young Jedi Knights prepared evening meal in the

  Millennium Falcon, the villagers all worked together to dig a grave for

  the man who had died that afternoon. They buried him in an area

  already dotted with mounds, and Jacen realized with shock that each

  mound was a grave. He doubted that many of the dead had fallen prey to

  natural causes.

  Anobis appeared worn out and stretched to its limits, as if it were

  making a last gasp for life. As far as Jacen could tell, agricultural

  settlements such as this one continued fighting only out of sheer

  habit, not because of any lingering convictions. The current of hatred

  ran too deep to be diverted by any rational arguments.

  The fanners ate the Falcon's food supplies with great gusto as Jacen

  and Jaina served meal after meal from the galley. Tenel Ka, Lowie, and

  Em Teedee welcomed guests and cleaned up after each one, while Zekk and

  Anakin tinkered with the food-prep unit to see if it could produce the

  meals faster.

  The sun of Anobis set in a coppery orange glow behind the ominous

  mountains where the enemy mining villages were located. The smoke in

  the air made the colors more vivid. Keeping to herself, Anja gazed

  toward the craggy shadows with something akin to
longing, while the

  farming villagers looked at the mountains with fear and loathing.

  Outside, Han ate with old Ynos. The village leader seemed content that

  his people had received this small reprieve. "So who speaks for all

  the farmers?" Han asked. "Is there a council I could talk to? What

  would it take to bring about a cease-fire between the miners and

  farmers-stop all this death and destruction, even temporarily?"

  Jacen paused in his serving to listen to the old farmer.

  "Each of the farm communities is separate and independent, though ours

  is one of the largest," Ynos said, wiping his mouth. "I can speak for

  these people as well as anyone else. I know how they feel."

  He heaved a great sigh. "You saw what happened this afternoon.

  It is a common occurrence. Day after day, our people are slaughtered

  indiscriminately by brutal weapons that strike unarmed targets. None

  of us are soldiers. The graveyard beyond the village is filled with

  the innocent victims of the miners' hatred."

  Jacen saw his father shoot a glance over at Anja, his face troubled.

  Jacen was confused because the young woman had told a completely

  different story about how much pain the farmers caused the people in

  the mountains. He would have to assume that neither story was exactly

  correct.

  As twilight turned into deeper dusk, the most physically fit young men

  and women finished eating their fill of the donated rations, then went

  out as sentries to guard the village. The mine-laced fields sprawled

  toward the forests and mountains in the west, while behind them rocky

  hills etched with canyons looked just as inhospitable. Night insects,

  birds, and more sinister-sounding creatures bumbled and set up their

  songs around the darkening plain, particularly from the rugged hills to

  the east where the brush fire still glowed.

  "What are you afraid of?" Jacen asked one of the villagers. "What are

  you guarding against?"

  The gaunt young man looked at him in shock. "Everything," he said.

  When Jacen finally settled down to eat, he felt uncomfortable with his

  usual large plateful when these people had been starving for so long.

  Off in the darkness he heard the strange night sounds getting louder.

  A low hooting and snarling from the rocks came closer. The villagers

  looked up in alarm.

  The ferocious sound grew louder, echoing, as if it came from dozens,

  perhaps even hundreds of throats. Now a rustling approached through

  the distant, fire-ravaged hills. After a moment of rising tension, the

  sentries shouted an alarm.

  Tenel Ka sprang to her feet and stood beside Jacen. "What is it?"

  she said. "Are the mountain miners attacking?"

  Anja dropped back toward the Falcon, a startled look on her face.

  Lowie sniffed the air and growled. "Dear me, Master Lowbacca," Em

  Teedee said. "I'm certain I can't identify the specie,;, but I do

  agreethose definitely sound like the voices of predators."

  The sentries yelled out, "Knaars! Knaars!" The villagers who were

  still eating dropped their plates of precious food and scrambled back

  to their homes. Some grabbed sticks, others gathered prized

  possessions.

  Many wailed in panic.

  "What is it?" Jacen cried. "What are knaars?"

  "Monsters!" Ynos said, pivoting on his droid leg. "It sounds like an

  entire herd migrating from the hills. The fire must have driven them

  in our direction." He hung his head as villagers continued their

  disorganized evacuation efforts all around them. "Now the miners will

  have cause to rejoice. Our village will be wiped out."

  "Can you not fight these monsters?" Tenel Ka said.

  "For a few minutes," one of the villagers said.

  "I'm going to kill five before they take me down," a brash young man

  said, though the look of terror on his pale face belied his brave

  words.

  "Killing five won't even help," Ynos said. "A migration pack contains

  hundreds, and the fire has driven them into a frenzy."

  "We can fight beside you." Tenel Ka clutched her lightsaber. "We are

  Jedi."

  "Then you might kill five yourself But we'll still all fall under their

  fangs and claws." Ynos shook his head. "We may as well fightthere's

  nowhere to run." He glanced over at the deadly minefields blocking

  their path toward the forest, their direction of escape.

  Han stood up and put a protective hand on Jacen's shoulder as the

  sounds of hooting and howling grew louder. They heard thundering feet,

  claws skittering on stones. "I could take some refugees in the

  Falcon.

  I can't carry nearly enough, though."

  Ania stood beside the boarding rwnp. "I'll get my lightsaber," she

  said, and ducked inside.

  Jacen glanced after her with a questioning look. He had thought she

  always wore the weapon at her belt. But that hardly mattered now. He

  was much more concerned about the oncoming predators.

  Inside the back cabin where she had stashed her pack, Anja rummaged

  among her belongings and took out the small black carbon-freeze unit.

  Her fingers trembled. She had been wanting the spice so badly; now, at

  last, she had a perfect excuse.

  Hunching over to hide what she was doing, Anja took one of the tiny

  black cylinders in her hand. Its coldness felt welcome against her

  sweaty palm. Czethros had given her only enough andris for four

  doses-not as many as she wanted ... but she would have to make it

  last.

  Looking longingly at the three remaining packages of spice, she sealed

  them in her pack. Then she carefully unwrapped the insulating opaque

  paper that surrounded the spice. The andris spice came from a newly

  discovered vein on Kessel, the highest quality available.

  Anja could barely wait. Outside she heard shouts, human voices among

  the predatory growls. She would have to hurry.

  Before the spice could warm to air temperature, she slipped it under

  her tongue and felt the energy course through her. Her muscles sang.

  Her nerves became much more sensitive. Her thoughts whirled. Her

  blood pumped more freely, the air tasted sweeter, and her mind opened

  to things around her that she had never before noticed.

  The spice heightened her senses, increased her ability to fight,

  improved her reflexes. Anja clasped the ancient lightsaber at her

  side. With the full dose of spice surging through her body, she felt

  vibrant, powerful, ready to take on any foe.

  As Han Solo led a group of escaping villagers into the Falcon, Anja

  pushed past him to run outside. At this moment she didn't care how

  many knaars were attacking. She could handle them all.

  "There's no time to argue, Dad," Jaina said, standing at the base of

  the ramp as Han Solo tried to cram a last few people aboard. Zekk had

  already gone into the cockpit and was powering up the engines for

  immediate takeoff. A dozen of the remaining villagers huddled around

  Jaina in terror, holding sticks and agricultural implements. One woman

  had a small laser drilling tool.

  "Take Anakin and go," Jaina insisted. "We have our lightsabers, and we


  have to help these people."

  "But I can't leave my own kids behind," Han said, obviously torn.

  "We're Jedi Knights, Dad. We have a better chance than any of these

  villagers. We've got to protect them."

  And with that, the first knaars charged out of the darkness at the

  ramshackle line of buildings, looking for prey. Jaina stood startled

  for a moment. Tenel Ka, Lowie, and Jacen all stared at their new

  enemy.

  "We're doomed," Em Teedee wailed.

  The knaars were fast-moving reptilian predators, sleek saurians with

  purplish-blue scales and a silver frill of razor-sharp spines along

  their backs. Tails slashed back and forth, inflicting damage on

  anything around them with their wicked barbs. The creatures' muscular

  anus ended in a fistful of claws, and their immense jaws were heavy

  machinery designed only for eating.

  The pack of bloodthirsty beasts stampeded into the village. They

  swiveled their heads from side to side, clenching and unclenching their

  grasping claws, looking for flesh to tear.

  As the Falcon blasted its repulsobets and rose up, Jaina watched it

  swivel around and fly low to the ground, approaching the predatory

  knaars. Han and Zekk would use blaster cannons to shoot the creatures,

 

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