Under A Black Sun Trilogy

by Kevin J. Anderson

  victims."

  ")"at?" Elis said, astonished. "Lilmit? Impossible. He wants to

  help us win."

  "No," Anja croaked, her voice rough and weak. "We intercepted him on

  his way here and confiseatedhis cargo. He had weapons for our miners,

  all right. But he also had sonic punchers and other equipment the

  farmers use against us."

  "They're selling to both sides?" Elis said in horror.

  Just then, the guards dragged in an indignant and weary-looking Ynos.

  His mechanical droid leg scraped along the stone floors. He had heard

  the last of the exchange. Standing, he shook off the grasp of the

  guards.

  "You buy weapons from Lilmit as well?" he growled.

  Elis looked at him, and the expression on his face rippled with pure

  rage. "They're playing both sides for fools-supplying all of us, while

  we continue to fight and harm each other all for nothing!"

  "I wouldn't be so sure." Zekk crossed his anus over his chest.

  "They may have been keeping this little war going for as long as

  possible, just because business is so good."

  Ynos and Elis glared daggers at each other.

  "I understand your little brother was trying to destroy our village,

  and had a little accident," the one-legged man taunted.

  With a roar, Elis charged toward the farming leader, but Jacen and

  Jaina moved with their father and friends to block his way.

  "Protas shouldn't have gone to the village last night. Anja was there

  with him," Jaina said. "Ynos had nothing to do with it."

  "It's my fault," Anja said. "I planted that burrowing detonator to

  destroy Ynos's home. It went off ... too soon, and the explosion

  killed your brother."

  "My home is gone?" Ynos said. "Our village is ruined, as well."

  He hung his shaggy head. He turned his eyes toward Anja. "And who

  would have died if the detonator hadn't gone off 'too soon'?"

  Anja did not meet his eyes.

  "Someone must pay," Elis insisted. "You farmers have much to atone

  for-all of the sonic punchers you have planted, the tunnels you have

  collapsed, the miners you have killed with your cowardly hidden

  weapons." Ynos drew himself up. "And who will pay for all of my

  people who died while trying to plant crops for our very survival?

  What of the victims of your burrowing detonators, your monofilament

  nets in the forest?"

  "Nothing you do can bring those people back," Jacen said.

  "Blaster bolts! If you keep trying to take revenge for what the other

  side does, this war will never end."

  "Your people have demonstrated that over the last twenty years," Anakin

  pointed out.

  "But we can't just forget and put it all behind us," Elis said with a

  scowl. "Too much blood has been shed, and too many traps remain.

  People will continue to die for years as they stumble upon leftover

  sonic punchers buried by these ... renegades in our precious mines."

  "And how are we to farm?" Ynos cried. "All of our most fertile land

  is still full of deadly explosives. We can't even plow the fields,

  much less plant our seeds."

  "Then maybe all of you should work together to clear out those traps

  and explosives," Jacen said, "instead of wasting all your time rigging

  more murder weapons to strike back at each other."

  "Why spend your efforts on causing more damage instead of on healing

  your world?" Tenel Ka asked.

  Anja looked up at them, her eyes weary. She heaved a huge sigh.

  "You ask the impossible."

  Jacen and Jaina looked at each other, recalling their uncle Luke's

  story of his Jedi training with Yoda. Luke had thought Yoda asked the

  impossible.

  "Believing that peace is impossible-that you can't change-is what keeps

  your war going," Jaina said.

  "That's a surefire way to fail," Jacen said.

  "It's true," Zekk said. A look of pain flashed in his emerald eyes.

  "You have to be willing first-willing to do things a new way, willing

  to look forward instead of back."

  "And speaking of willing," Han said, "our offer still stands. If

  you're willing to forget the word 'impossible,' we're willing to help

  out in any way we can."

  Elis closed his eyes tightly, his face etched with grief, as if he were

  reliving decades of murder, destruction, and hopelessness in his

  mind.

  "What do you say, old man?" he said, turning toward Ynos without

  opening his eyes. "Are we willing?" A single tear escaped from

  beneath one lid.

  Ynos's voice was rough with emotion. "Our way has helped no one-except

  for those who sold us weapons. I do not know how we can make this

  change. But, yes, I am willing."

  Elis opened his eyes. "Where do we begin?"

  Anakin's face lit up as he considered the problem. "I think I just

  might have an idea."

  When the young Jedi Knights began cleanup operations on Anobis, they

  realized it wasn't exactly the type of battle they were accustomed to

  fighting ... but it was a battle nevertheless.

  The nondiscriminating weapons planted by both sides had taken countless

  victims, and not just soldiers in battle. Many of the deadly traps had

  been set years, even decades before, and continued to take their toll,

  as much in terror as in blood.

  Jacen doubted the planet's scars would ever vanish-completely, but with

  the temporary cease-fire brought on by grief and despair, the wounds

  might at least begin to heal.

  Han Solo came back from the Millennium Falcon in the landing grotto.

  He rubbed his hands briskly together and smiled at his children.

  "Well, I just sent out a message, summoned a little help from a few

  friends."

  "We can use all the help we can get," Zekk said.

  Han gave one of his famous wry smiles. "You saying a couple of Jedi

  Knights can't handle everything?"

  Lowie stood tall among them, chuffing a suggestion. Em Teedee

  translated. "Master Lowbacca believes that perhaps some of the key

  commandos from each side could help us locate the booby traps that were

  planted."

  :'If they can remember," Jacen said. "There are so many of them."

  "Then we've got a lot of work to do," Jaina observed. "What are we

  waiting for?"

  While the others went off on separate missions, Jacen and Zekk made

  their way to the dangerous mining tunnels. Accompanied by Anja and two

  downcast farmers they searched for hidden sonic punchers.

  Many times, farmers had slipped into the mining tunnels from the cliff

  face, and so Jacen, Zekk, and Anja, and the others climbed down the

  steep mountain path outside and entered through the boarded-up

  entrances to played-out shafts.

  They moved along holding shining glowsticks that bore an eery

  resemblance to miniature lightsabers. The pale, cold light spilled

  ahead of them into the passageways. The farmers blinked, warily

  looking in both directions. Anja followed, tense and seething, lips

  pressed together, as if she could barely resist the urge to pull out

  her ancient lightsaber and strike these enemies down. But she

  contained her anger and focused on disarming the
hidden traps.

  "We haven't worked these tunnels for years." Anja narrowed her sad

  eyes at the farmers. "It would have been foolish to plant a sonic

  puncher here."

  The two young men looked sheepishly at each other. "We don't know much

  about your work," one said. "We just planted the punchers wherever we

  could."

  They turned a jagged corner to a branching of dark tunnels. The

  glowsticks shone ahead, but pushed back the shadows only a small

  distance.

  "Wait," Zekk said, holding up his hand.

  Jacen felt his senses tingling. "Down there," he said, pointing to the

  left.

  One of the farmers shook his head. "No, we didn't go down there.

  I'm sure of it."

  "Doesn't matter," Zekk said. "We sense danger down there."

  "Could be an older trap," one of the men suggested.

  "Old or new, we have to get rid of them all," Jacen said. "You three

  stay here." He and Zekk edged forward, pushing the glowsticks into the

  ominous tunnel.

  "Quiet," Zekk cautioned in a whisper. "Sonic punchers are activated by

  disturbances in the air. If we get too close, we'll set it off."

  Despite their warning to stay back, Anja came up behind them.

  "How are you going to get rid of it? Once a puncher is activated, no

  one can get close without blowing it up."

  "Maybe we can," Jacen murmured, raising an eyebrow. For some reason,

  he wanted to impress Anja. He saw sweat darkening the leather headband

  she wore and heading on her forehead. He and Zekk stood shoulder to

  shoulder, looking deeper into the darkness.

  "Our Jedi senses can do the searching for us," Zekk said in a low

  voice. He turned to his friend. "Are you up to it?"

  Jacen nodded. Calming himself, he reached out with his mind, and used

  the extra eyes and ears the Force gave him. He could tell Zekk was

  doing the same. They scanned into the dimness of the tunnel, locating

  rocks, crystalline formations, rubble piled at the bottom of the

  channel. His mind moved in farther. He breathed slowly, feeling his

  heartbeat. Blood pounded in his temples.

  There. He sensed something wrong, an object out of place ... a device

  that didn't belong in the rocky debris.

  "Found it," Jacen said.

  "Me too," Zekk answered.

  With his mind Jacen ran invisible fingers over an outer metal casing,

  glittering controls, and finely tuned sensors just waiting to be

  triggered by an unexpected motion in the air.

  "Careful," Jacen whispered. "Help me lift it out."

  They used the Force, stretching out together with their minds, to move

  the rubble gently away from the weapon. This small device contained

  enough power to crack open fissures in the tunnel walls and bring the

  entire ceiling down.

  Anja came up close behind them. "Maybe you should just detonate it in

  there," she said. Her soft words startled Jacen, nearly making him

  lose control of his concentration. He could feel her warm breath on

  the side of his face and neck. "Throw a few rocks down the tunnel and

  set it off." Zekk glanced back over his shoulder toward her. "No.

  We may need to explode some of them, but I think we can do most of the

  punchers our way. There's been enough damage already."

  Working as a team, they used a silent Jedi mind grip to lift the sonic

  puncher, carefully raising it off the floor. Just then, a loose rock

  fell from a pile and clattered to the floor. The sound was like

  thunder, and the vibration was enough to activate the trigger.

  "No!" Jacen cried. With his mind he clamped onto the distant

  controls, freezing the mechanism.

  Zekk reacted in a different way, lashing out with the Force to rip

  circuits free inside the detonator, deactivating it forcibly. An

  instant later his face fell, as if he was ashamed of himself "You found

  a better way, Jacen."

  "Either one would have worked," Jacen said. "Just let the Force guide

  you, and stay calm inside."

  Together they walked into the tunnel and picked up the now-inert sonic

  grenade. Jacen handed it to Anja. "A souvenir for you. Our first

  success."

  "Fine," she said, and looked skeptically at it. "But don't get

  cocky.

  I hear we've still got about forty to go."

  Lowbacca reveled in being in the forest again, despite the hidden traps

  and dangers he knew waited for them there. Tenel Ka trotted at his

  side among the silvery trees. A few miners and fanners came with them,

  trying to recall where each group had planted weapons.

  They stopped at the edge of a pristine-looking meadow, with its

  colorful wildflowers like fireworks among the grasses. Tenel Ka

  marched immediately to where the holographic generator covered a

  spike-filled pit. She picked up a rock and threw it. They all watched

  as it vanished into the lush grasses. The camouflage hologram rippled

  with a flicker of static, then returned to its serene appearance.

  The miners gasped. Lowie went over to a stout tree and with his bare

  hands ripped the controls away, shorting them out. The hologram

  flickered and faded, revealing the open pit and its sharp spikes.

  The miners looked furious at the thought of the cowardly trap the farm

  villagers had set. But one farmer snarled, "Is that any more vicious

  than your monofilament wire that can butcher us into pieces as we

  walk?"

  The miners took the lead, showing where they had strung their wires

  between trees. Lowie could barely see the laser-sharp lines, but he

  knew they were there. He and Tenel Ka drew their lightsabers and swept

  through the air, as if fighting invisible spiderwebs. The scaring

  blades severed the monofilament wire, making the passage safe again.

  Lowie sniffed. On the forest floor below where the cutting web had

  been strung, he saw numerous dead animals: birds whose wings had been

  neatly amputated when they flew between the wrong trees, and larger

  forest animals, cut down as they walked, left to decay in the forest

  mulch, surrounded by the bodies of carrion eaters who'd also ventured

  into the deadly trap.

  Both sides were subdued now, resentful but cowed.

  "Come," Tenel Ka said gruffly, marching forward. Her pale skin and

  glittering lizard-hide armor looked out of place in the silent,

  primeval forest. "We have much ground to cover, and years of

  accumulated dangers to eliminate."

  Jaina once again took her place as the Millennium Falcon's copilot.

  She felt very comfortable in the position, though she realized that as

  soon as they left Anobis, her father would travel with Chewbacca

  again.

  She didn't feel sad, however. Being her father's copilot was a

  wonderful experience and had taught her much, but she preferred flying

  the Rock Dragon. Even though the Hapan passenger cruiser technically

  belonged to Tenel Ka, Jaina knew that once her skills were sufficiently

  advanced, she would get a cruiser of her own, perhaps an old ship like

  Zekk's Lightning Rod, or maybe something newer and faster.... She

  grinned at the thought.

  Han looked over at her, wondering what sh
e was thinking. "Don't get

  distracted now, Jaina," he said. "This is a touchy operation."

  The Falcon cruised over the treetops and suddenly burst out above the

  open cropland. Jaina could see where the land had long ago been

  cleared for farming. Green weeds showed how fertile the dirt could be,

  but first the deadly harvest planted beneath the soil, the burrowing

  detonators that waited for any unsuspecting footfall, would have to be

  removed.

  "All right, kids," Han said. Anakin came forward to stand between

  Jaina and his father. "I need something that not even the Falcon can

  do for me. Use your Jedi senses to help your old man find those

  detonators and get rid of them."

  Anakin nodded, squinting his eyes in concentration. Jaina recalled how

  she had avoided the buried explosives during their desperate flight

  from the knaars. In her mind she saw a dotted pattern of ripples

  below, like a scrambled checkerboard of targets on the ground.

  "There's an awful lot of them, Dad," Jaina said.

  "Swarms," Anakin added.

  "Well, let's get started then. Give me some coordinates."