Under A Black Sun Trilogy
Page 43
Despite the perils he knew some of his students would eventually
face-and that the young Jedi Knights might be facing even now on their
quest to find Anja out in the galaxy-Luke had no regrets. He had made
difficult choices. He had done what he'd had to do. His students were
doing the same.
And the Force was with them all.
6iven the undersea monster's enormous body mass, the powerful spice
worked more quickly than Zekk could possibly have imagined. He gripped
the controls and tried to maneuver the minisub away with all possible
speed, but they gained only a minimal distance-nowhere near enough.
After swallowing the prodigious amount of andris, the beast fl?tiled
briefly, then began darting from left to right, its tentacles
thrashing, grabbing, jittering, as if from seizures and convulsions.
Jacen rubbed his temples, concentrating, then gave a sigh of
exasperation. "There's no way I can get through to it now. It's got a
storm going through its brain!"
Cilghal released the useless grasper controls of the sub's remaining
mechanical claw and threw herself into helping Zekk. He pushed the
minisub's engines beyond their maximum recommended levels, heading
higher into the inverted canyons of iceberg roots, toward the blocky
mass of the polar cap and away from the thrashing beast.
"Maybe he won't notice us," Zekk muttered.
"Yeah, and maybe Han Solo's on his way to rescue us at this very
moment," Anja said with clear scorn. Her face was flushed, her
forehead sweating-but she seemed to be fighting internal battles beyond
simple fear for their survival. "Face it, Zekk-we're in trouble."
The leviathan's flailings became even more frenzied. It spun about,
tentacles waving like handfuls of bullwhips. Finally, it focused its
energy on a single target: the minisub. The creature turned its long
head on its sinuous neck, its glowing yellow eyes flaring with a
brighter light as the monster dove in to attack.
Cilghal uttered a wordless sound as she jammed the throttles from the
copilot's stition. Zekk let her maneuver, since she was more familiar
with oceangoing vessels. The sub's propellers and bubbles swirled
behind its main body as they shot off through the frigid water.
The sea monster followed, reaching forward, stretching, trying to
grasp. The tip of one tentacle brushed against the main propeller on
the rear of the sub, which sheared it off. The creature drew back, but
seconds later the maddened monster resumed the chase, frothing the
water behind it. Its sharp silver-fanged jaws clocked together, as if
prepared to cut through the metal hull.
With a rapid sideways motion, a tentacle slammed into the directional
fin that guarded one engine. The inner compartment of the minisub rang
like a heavy bell from the blow. The engines squealed and groaned,
spilling smoke, but they continued to work-just barely.
Zekk and Cilghal took the sub higher, closer to the ice-locked
surface.
Zekk's ears popped with the pressure difference.
Outside, drifting slabs of ice smashed against the hull with loud
thunks and bangs that reverberated through the chamber. Cilghal
swerved the minisub's rudder, and Zekk tilted the craft to avoid a
knotted underwater cliff that dangled beneath a heavy iceberg.
By grasping the rough ice with its tentacles, the sea creature hauled
itself forward. Closer and closer.
"Up there!" Zekk said, pointing to a fissure in the ice. "It's too
small for the creature to follow us inside." Cilghal saw and nodded.
Anja frowned, covering her fear with her usual show of skepticism.
She seemed to be exceedingly tense and appeared to be shivering. "I
doubt even the sub could get in there."
The creature lashed out with its sharp-ended tentacles and slapped the
ice. Large blue-white chunks broke off and drifted around them, like
boulders rising and falling in slow motion. The minisub ducked below a
jagged ceiling of frozen ice and accelerated as the gap widened,
spewing bubbles. The sea creature charged after them, thrashing,
groping with its tentacles. One of the long whiplike appendages
finally fastened on to the rear of the sub, somehow gaining purchase
with its suckers on the smooth hull.
Inside, Jacen was tossed into Anja. Her breathing rasped in his
ears.
Tenel Ka was the only one who managed to keep her place. Zekk was
thrown halfway from the pilot's seat to slam against the sub wall.
Cilghal gripped the controls and held herself erect.
"It's got us," Zekk cried, trying to regain his balance. His ears
ringing, he pushed himself back into his seat. Cilghal throttled the
engines down, let the minisub drift backward for a second, and then
revved up the engines in a sudden burst to push them forward again.
Slowly, the slippery hull pulled free from the suction cups, leaving
the monster's bruised and throbbing tentacle behind.
Bubbles sprayed in front of the windowports, and Cilghal could barely
see to help Zekk navigate. Huge, jagged chunks of ice blocked their
way. One smashed into the front of the sub, making a scar on the thick
windowport and shearing off the minisub's remaining grappling arm.
Cilghal placed a flippered hand on Zekk's arm. He felt strength flow
into his mind. Guided by the Force, Zekk twisted the rudder from left
to right, and the sub looped around an obstacle, more because of the
Force than from any spectacular piloting skill. The torn end of the
ruined grappling arm sparked and sprayed, then went dead as Zekk
disabled its power systems.
"You're sure there aren't any weapons on this thing?" Jacen called
from the rear of the sub. "Anything at all?"
"It's a working craft, mainly for tourists or that Yarin's personal
use," Cilghal answered. "I'm sure it was never meant to drive off an
attack."
"There is the towing beam." Tenel Ka pointed out a small tractorbeam
that could fasten onto an underwater object and drag it to the
surface.
"Perhaps that could assist us."
"Hey!" Jacen said. "Good idea."
"Great," Anja said with a snort. "Am I the only sane person down
here?
Or does someone else agree that the last thing we want is to pull that
monster closer to us!" Perspiration stood out on her upper lip.
"Not that-we can grab a big chunk of ice and pull it behind us.
Block the way," Zekk said, seeing Tenel Ka's idea.
Cilghal didn't argue, immediately running her webbed hands across the
controls. A pulsing beam stabbed out from the rear of the sub and
grasped a knob of ice, yanking the berg into the path behind them. The
ice moved slowly through the thick, cold water-but it did move. The
frozen wall drifted enough to cover their escape.
The creature rammed into it, wrapping tentacles around jagged bluewhite
edges.
The moving iceberg pounded into others, slamming ice against rock-hard
ice. Zekk moved the minisub up into the fissure between the broken
chunks of the polar cap, rising higher. Cilghal continued to use
what
was left of the ice chunk as a shield. Shattered pieces of other
floating mountains snapped off and drifted back into the channel
through which they had just passed.
The sea monster suddenly found itself surrounded by a hail of floating
boulders. Its tentacles reached out to knock the ice chunks aside as
the beast struggled forward in pursuit of its prey. But the icebergs
ground together, sealing off access.
The discouraged monster battered its tentacles against the ice. At
last, expelling a mouthful of bubbles and gnashing its long silvery
teeth, the creature swam away, still writhing with energy. Jacen
sensed the monster propelling itself into the dark depths of the polar
ocean in search of easier prey. The overdose of spice would give it
energy to hunt for a long, long time....
Zekk had difficulty maneuvering toward the surface. Ice walls closed
around them, sealing off their retreat while blocking any forward
motion. The sub couldn't even rise up to where the occupants could
reach the cold air on the surface.
Jacen and Tenel Ka stared in the direction of the departed monster as
more ice chunks lodged into place further sealing them off.
"The beast believes it has given us a mortal wound," Tenel Ka said.
"It has gone to hunt elsewhere."
"Practically speaking," Zekk said, "we do have a mortal wound.
Is it as bad as I think it is, Cilghal?"
The Calamarian ambassador examined the controls, worked them a bit, but
the minisub made no headway. The engines rumbled and smoked. "Our
vehicle is damaged," she said. "Our air is limited, and we find
ourselves trapped in a maze of blue ice."
Zekk grunted in acknowledgment. He hadn't wanted to be right about the
damage to the sub.
"At least we got away from that monster," Jacen said, always the
optimist.
"Great," Ania answered in a shaky voice. She looked very much on edge,
very distressed. "But have you noticed that we're stranded beneath the
polar ice cap?"
]Huddled in the wall channel of a dormant atmosphere factory, Jaina and
Lowie set about determining the best way to fight Black Sun's invasion
force.
The rock walls all around them were cold, and the air was thinbut the
environment would be far worse if they traveled up the longrusted
stairs to reach the open surface.
No matter how harsh the conditions they faced, though, Jaina knew they
had to do something, anything to prevent Czethros from enacting his
terrible schemes. The New Republic depended on them.
Lowie looked out of the tunnel entrance into the shadows of the broad
pit that rose vertically toward the surface. In the past, the miners
on Kessel had constructed gigantic factories to chemically release
gases frozen in the rocks and spew them upward to thicken the
atmosphere.
But such extravagant efforts had been only a temporary solution, and in
recent years the small planet had rapidly reverted to its natural state
of frigid cold with a rarefied atmosphere.
Next to the rock wall, the Wookiee took a deep breath. Fine threads of
frost laced his ginger fur, and the lanky young Jedi looked
miserable-but a fire of determination burned in his golden eyes. He
growled.
Jania understood much of the Wookiee language, but Em Teedee translated
anyway. "Master Lowbacca suggests that our primary mission should be
to cause a serious malfunction to the sophisticated transmitter
Czethros intends to use."
"Agreed," Jaina said, looking at Lowie. "If we get rid of that
transmitter, Czethros can't send his signal. His coordinated plan
fails."
"Yes, but Mistress Jaina," Em Teedee chimed in, "however are we to
disable such a large piece of equipment?"
Jaina shrugged and then smiled at the shiny little translating droid.
"First thing is to find some sort of explosives.... Then we may just
need you to sneak in there, Em Teedee."
The floating little droid's electronic squawk reverberated through the
tunnels.
Each of the control rooms in the spice mine catacombs was sealed with a
heavy door, code-locked and computer-controlled. Lowie used his
programming expertise, with an occasional assist from the little droid,
to crack the codes and force their way into one of the equipment
lockers.
It wasn't difficult to find a supply of shaped explosives of the sort
used for blasting mine tunnels. Kessel was, after all, an industrial
excavation area. Lowie found small packaged cylinders marked with red
HAzARD labels. He hefted them in his hands and looked over at Em
Teedee's microrepulsorjets. He gave a growl of satisfaction.
"You can handle these, Em Teedee," Jaina said. "They don't weigh
much."
"Oh, my!" the little droid replied. "But I've never carried
explosives before."
"Not much different from a rock," Jaina said encouragingly, "except
that these'll explode if you bump against anything."
"I appreciate your support, Mistress Jaina, but I find your optimism
... unsettling." She patted the floating silvery ovoid as it hovered
in the air.
The tunnels were empty. The spice mine loading docks were shut down,
denying access to any cargo ships, since Black Sun had taken over.
Czethros could not keep up this charade for long, but security threats
against Kessel oftentimes required such random crackdowns, and the
merchants waiting in orbit would just have to wait longer. No
complaints or unusual-occurrence reports would be filed for at least
another standard day.
Czethros would no doubt launch his widespread takeover before then.
Therefore, Jaina and her friends needed to complete their sabotage
before that could happen.
Most of the dusty tunnels were silent and abandoned. The actual
numbers in the Black Sun occupation fleet were quite small, but they
had placed armed guards in key positions. Nien Nunb and his loyal
followers had been sealed in the slave barracks left over from the days
when Kessel had been a prison facility. Many other workers, along with
a few unfortunate cargo ship pilots, were being kept under guard behind
force fields. It was an unstable situation, and Jaina knew it wouldn't
take much to turn the tables.
But first, they had to get rid of that transmitter.
They climbed up through air shafts, avoiding lift platforms for fear of
whom they might encounter. Finally, they reached the upper main
loading dock on the surface. Access doors would be closed but not
locked. No one in their right mind would go for a casual walk on the
surface of Kessel.
According to maps and diagrams of the spice mine and its comm station,
they had a good idea where Kessel's sophisticated transmittercurrently
being modified by Black Sun-must be located. The powerful antenna was
large ... and probably well guarded. Two human-sized intruders could
not possibly remain hidden as they made their way across the bleak,
rugged surface.
But a small silvery droid migh
t just be able to slip in
undetected....
The ships in the cargo bay sat quiet and empty, as if the place was
abandoned. Jaina recognized one of the familiar craft, though. A
small man worked furtively beneath the engines.
"Lilmit's still around!" Jaina said. M%ile the other pilots were
taken prisoner, Lilnt had probably been allowed to remain here because
he worked for Black Sun.
The strange man looked up, and his eyes went wide as he noticed the
Wookiee and the young woman. The hapless smuggler raised his webbed
hands in panic. "Oh, no! But you're gone. Your ship left. I saw the
docking records. Go away-there's nothing more I can tell you."
"Great," Jaina muttered. "Now we'll have to take him hostage."
Lilnt wailed. "Please, I didn't have anything to do with this. I just
wanted to get off Kessel before the Black Sun takeover. Czethros will
be furious if he sees that I'm still here."
Jaina looked at Lowie, wondering how they would ever manage to keep
Lilnt quiet. If the little man caused a scene and got them noticed,
they were sunk. But instead, the frantic smuggler ran into his ship to
hide and sealed the hatch.
"I do believe our diminutive friend has panicked," Em Teedee said.
"Let's hope he stays quiet for just a little while," Jaina said.