Under A Black Sun Trilogy

by Kevin J. Anderson

  off one of the sonic punchers. The trigger could have been the sound

  of their laughter, or the songs they sang as they went to work.

  "The sonic blast cracked and shattered the rock walls and the

  ceiling.

  The entire crew was buried-crushed and battered to death under the

  collapse of the cave.

  "We can never go into this area again. It's too unstable. We do not

  even dare to excavate the grotto to retrieve their bodies." Elis drew

  a long shuddering breath. "The miners must rest here, buried in the

  tunnels where they worked. Over the ages they will become part of the

  mountain themselves.

  "Perhaps by then, there will be an end to this war." The mining

  leader's voice was bleak.

  Seeing the anger in the man's eyes, Zekk wondered.

  When all the prisoners, including Han Solo and the young Jedi Knights,

  had been separated by Elis and the miners, Anja slipped away.

  She saw an opportunity too good to ignore. She also knew exactly the

  person who could best take advantage of the circumstances.

  Protas, the younger brother of the mining leader, was a bitter and

  grim-faced youth, barely nineteen. He had a wispy, pale beard and

  dusty skin from spending most of his life inside the stone tunnels,

  working his fingers until they bled among the rocks. But the intense

  young man also made frequent unofficial excursions down to the forests

  and croplands, where he planted traps to do his part in the fight

  against the fanning villagers.

  Now, with Anja's help, he could strike a blow the farmers would never

  forget.

  When one of the mining crews took a break, Anja trotted down through

  the tunnels asking questions until she was finally directed to Elis's

  younger brother. She gestured for him to join her in one of the

  shadowed rocky alcoves. "Protas, I need to speak to you."

  He raised his eyebrows. They had been children together, and if Anja

  had stayed on Anobis, they might well have gotten married. But she had

  slipped off to Ord Mantell to join some band of smugglers.

  Because of their past, though, Anja knew Protas would listen to what

  she had to say.

  "We now hold all of the farmers from one village captive inside the

  tunnels," she said.

  Protas grinned. "I know. What more could we ask for? You led them

  right to us. Thank you, Anja."

  "I'll tell you what more you could ask for." Anja smiled, moving

  closer to him. The skin under her leather headband itched, but she

  ignored it. Her voice was breathless as she spilled out her plan.

  "Their village is abandoned now. They left it completely unoccupied.

  We can go there tonight, slip in and burn everything down. Not only

  have we captured them, we can destroy everything they hold dear."

  Protas's eyes gleamed, and he placed a conspiratorial hand on her

  shoulder. "We still have plenty of burrowing detonators, but we could

  never before get close enough to plant them right in the village. But

  now, we can rig explosives in all of their homes, make it so that the

  fanners destroy their own dwellings. Just by going home, they'll bring

  about their own doom!"

  Anja's large, dark eyes twinkled. "That's even better. This way, if

  any of the farmers survive, they can blame Han Solo and his companions

  for meddling. I knew I could count on you."

  Protas nodded to her. "I'll get the weapons and bring some of my

  men.

  We'll depart as soon as the sun sets."

  They did not share their plan with Elis or any of the other miners.

  Anja, Protas, and four angry-faced commandos slipped out through one of

  the smaller tunnels, walking with sure feet on the smooth stone

  walkways.

  Outside, careful but confident, they dashed down the mountain

  switchbacks, listening to loose rocks clatter behind them as they raced

  along.

  The double moonlight provided but a pale silvery illumination and stole

  all colors from the landscape, marking the terrain with only lightness

  and shadow.

  As they entered the thick forest, the sounds of night insects and small

  creatures rustling through the branches did not bother Anja. She had

  her lightsaber. And minutes before leaving the mountain village, she

  had gone alone into the Millennium Falcon and taken one of her precious

  doses of andris. With enhanced senses, she could experience the sharp

  edges of details around her. She would spot any traps waiting for

  them. Protas and his fighters had chosen a safe trail that avoided all

  of the deadly surprises they had themselves rigged.

  Heading east, she wondered about the knaars that had swept through the

  ramshackle village and across the croplands. But that had been a full

  day and a half before; given slim pickings, the migratory herd's

  surviving members would have gone in search of other villages or

  abandoned livestock left to graze by fanners who had been killed during

  the long civil war.

  The group of commandos picked their way across the barren fields.

  Protas consulted a diagram of where they had planted burrowing

  detonators . The tunneling robotic explosives could move about, but

  only within a certain radius of where they had been buried.

  As she trotted along beside the young man, Anja saw blasted craters

  where detonators had exploded, some triggered by the heavy footsteps of

  the knaars, others by farmers bumbling into the wrong place.

  The stark moonlight shone down, making the croplands look like a

  moonscape. None of the once-rich fields had been planted for many

  years. Perhaps, she thought, the miners could use their new captives

  as slaves to work the land again and provide food for the mountain

  villages. Or maybe that was just too much trouble.

  She saw a shattered skeleton lying on the dirt, a femur and a hipbone,

  part of a rib cage. The knaars had stripped all the flesh from the

  bones of their victims, whether human or reptilian. Anja felt a small

  twinge of pity. Han Solo and his young companions had landed the

  Falcon here despite her protests. Though reluctant, she had eaten a

  meal with these people, had listened to their pathetic sob story of all

  the trials they'd endured.

  The knaars were not part of this war. They had not been sent by the

  mountain miners, but were simply a vicious vagary of the natural

  world.

  Anja was glad the attack had happened here, rather than in her own

  village. The knaars had unwittingly helped the miners' fight, removing

  some of their enemies.

  When they reached the abandoned village, she could see the silhouettes

  of the dark, leaning houses, uninhabited now that the farmers had

  fled.

  Their usually well-guarded homes now had no defenses whatsoever. If

  the miners had come at any other time, the farmers would have put up a

  fierce resistance-but not this night.

  "The village is ours," Protas said. "Nothing can stop us from

  destroying everything." The men gave a husky cheer.

  They opened their packs to remove the burrowing detonators.

  Anja's fingers tingled in an afterwash of spice. S
he reached into her

  sack and took out one of the small mechanical bombs. It was an oblong

  hemisphere, segmented and flexible like a pillbug. Claws and scoops

  moved on articulated joints so the device could tunnel beneath the soft

  dirt, implant itself, and wait for an unsuspecting footstep.

  With a snle, Anja decided that she would plant one of the detonators

  directly on the doorstep of Ynos, the village leader. She could claim

  that small victory for herself ... if the one-legged farmer ever

  managed to get free of his captivity in the mines.

  Anja bent down, cradling the device. She peered into the hollow shell

  of the home where Ynos lived. The hut was windowless, its walls

  patched and repaired. A slight evening breeze whispered through, like

  the breath of a sleeping man in the midst of a nightmare. She had not

  seen him with a wife or any family. Maybe they had died in earlier

  battles. The place seemed so lonely, so empty, so ... sad.

  Anja shook her head, gritting her teeth until her jaw hurt. She

  couldn't think of things like that now. They had a mission to

  accomplish.

  She pushed the activation button and set the small burrower on the

  ground. Its metallic joints whirred, digging in. The blunt nose of

  the roving mine tunneled underneath the surface like a robotic mole and

  covered itself, shifting the topsoil so that it left no sign of its

  presence.

  She backed away carefully, knowing that the land mine now lay in wait

  for Ynos when he came back to cross the threshold of his abandoned

  home.

  Satisfied, she jogged to a new building and planted her second

  detonator. Then she circled behind the scattered village and found one

  of Protas's men inspecting the nearly empty grain storage warehouse.

  He stepped toward the silo, igniter in hand, ready to set fire to the

  building.

  He looked at Anja, his eyes gleaming. "I want to see something burn

  this night."

  "Fine," she said, "but take the grain out first. Our own villagers

  need it. We'll take turns carrying it back to the mines."

  The young man nodded, went into the silo, and salvaged all that he

  found: three limp sacks containing barely enough for a single meal,

  though the farmers had hoarded it as if it were gold. Then Anja stood

  back to watch as the man set his thermal igniter in one of the

  corners.

  The flame blazed white-hot, and the silo caught fire immediately.

  Flames trickled up the walls to the rooftop, and soon the entire

  structure was engulfed.

  The fire crackled and hissed, and the smoke smelled sharp and

  satisfying in Anja's nostrils. The other commandos shouted that they

  were finished, and Anja came back around to the front of the cluster of

  wellings.

  "Let's go," she said. "We have to get back before daybreak."

  "Wait," Protas said. "I've got one last burrower to plant." He held

  it high, grinning through his wispy blond beard. Then, to Anja's

  horror, he ran straight toward the village leader's house. "I'm going

  to give Ynos a real surprise if ever he comes home."

  "No!" she shouted. "Wait, I already-" But before he could stop,

  Protas stepped directly on the spot where Anja had planted her

  detonator.

  The explosion ripped the night, throwing Protas high in the air, his

  clothes in flames, his body mangled. The front walls of Ynos's house

  collapsed into rubble. The young man's scream was swallowed in the

  echoes of the blast.

  Anja pressed her hands to her mouth in horror. The other young men

  stood in shock, staring at where the young brother of their village

  leader had been only moments before. As rocks, clods of dirt, and

  other debris began to patter down like a small meteor storm, Anja

  suddenly broke through her stunned immobility and raced forward.

  "Protas!" she shouted, knowing in the pit of her stomach that there

  was nothing she could do. She found the young man's body lying broken

  and bent in odd places, as if someone had folded him up and swatted him

  like a bothersome insect. His skin was burned, his open wounds bled,

  but his heart no longer pumped. Breath no longer filled his lungs.

  She looked up in bleak despair, her dark eyes burning as she blinked

  and blinked. Her throat constricted painfully. Heedless of the blood

  that stained her hands, she touched the young man's shoulder, ran her

  fingers along the wispy blond strands of his beard that now would never

  grow to bushy fullness like his older brother's.

  The commandos stared speechless at what they had inadvertently done.

  Anja's heart felt like a lead weight in her chest. She knew that she

  herself, and no one else, would have to tell Elis.

  in one of the stone-walled gathering rooms, Elis's anguished wails

  echoed from the rocks and seemed to hang in the air like cold

  icicles.

  Jacen shuddered at hearing the pain and sadness in that voice. The

  dark-bearded man cried out again, a wordless moan. He squeezed his

  eyes shut, and tears coursed down through the rugged crevices in his

  dusty face. When he ground his teeth together, his bushy beard stood

  out like black spines.

  Jacen stood without moving, frozen in the moment next to his friends

  and his father. It was early morning. They had slept uncomfortably,

  restlessly, and then they had been summoned from their rooms to meet

  with the mining leader. Elis wanted to discuss what the New Republic

  could possibly do to improve the situation on Anobis.

  With fresh hope, the group had trooped into the room to listen to the

  village leader and to offer suggestions as to how the long and painful

  civil war might finally reach a cease-fire, so that the parties could

  start talking. Although nothing had changed in decades, nothing was

  likely to change until the miners and the fanners at least began to

  communicate. Then, perhaps they could learn to talk in a civilized

  fashion.

  But before Han Solo or Elis could speak, Anja had burst into the room,

  her face drawn, her huge eyes even more grief-stricken than Jacen was

  accustomed to seeing them. She kept her trembling voice low, but Jacen

  understood most of the devastating news she passed to Elis. Zekk

  caught his breath. Lowbacca, with his sensitive Wookiee ears, listened

  and groaned. Em Teedee made no effort to translate. Han Solo fidgeted

  uncomfortably. Jacen and Jaina looked at each other.

  Elis turned away from them, hiding his face. The dark-haired mining

  leader clenched his left hand into a fist and began pounding on the

  stone wall of the meeting room. His chest was racked with sobs that he

  tried to contain within himself. As Elis smashed his knuckles again

  and again against the stone, Jacen saw a growing smear of blood

  blossoming there.

  Finally, the leader drew a deep breath and seemed to control himself.

  When Elis opened his eyes, the look of pure hatred behind them made

  Jacen turn cold. "I will kill them!" Elis roared. "Bring Ynos here

  now!" he shouted, and other miners scurried off to the cells to fetch

  the one-legged farming l
eader.

  "Why blame him?" Zekk asked, his voice surprisingly stern. His

  nostrils flared. "Those farmers didn't do anything this time. From

  what I could hear, the fault belonged to your brother-and those who

  went with him."

  Anja looked up in dismay, but did not argue.

  Jaina spoke up. "Ynos and his villagers didn't kill Protas, did they,

  Anja?" she said. "It was one of your own burrowing detonators,

  Elis.

  You planted them. You seeded the fields so that no one could grow

  crops anymore. It was an accident caused by your people, with your own

  weapons."

  "Yeah," Jacen said. "You certainly can't be angry with the fanners for

  this."

  "The true casualties of war are rarely those we expect," Tenel Ka

  added.

  Stricken, Elis was unable to sort through his thoughts. He didn't seem

  to hear anything the young Jedi Knights said. He stood up and looked

  down at his bloodied knuckles, as if surprised. "I will call Lilmit or

  one of our other suppliers. They will help us get enough weapons to

  wipe out the fanners and end this war forever. My brother will be the

  last casualty on our side."

  "It's kind of odd, don't you think?" Han Solo said. "That Lilmit is

  selling weapons to both sides, I mean. If you buy more, then the other

  side will buy more. Pretty soon you won't be able to count all the