"Very well," one guard said, and turned to a COMM station on the wall.
He pushed a button and, though Brakiss heard no words from beneath the
armored helmet, the Emperor's voice instantly slid through the speakers,
like sounds made of snakes.
"Brakiss, this is your Emperor. Your insolence annoys me."
"I merely wish to speak with you, my lord," he said, forcing his voice
to remain steady.
"You have not addressed the Shadow Academy or me since your arrival
here. I am concerned for your personal well-being." "Brakiss, you forget
your place. You can do nothing to protect me that I cannot do
myself-with ten times the power."
Brakiss felt his anger dwindling, but he clutched his pride for one last
moment. "I have not forgotten my place, my lord. My place is as the
Master of the Shadow Academy, to create an army of Dark Jedi for you and
your Second Imperium. My place is at your side-not cast out and ignored
like an insignificant bureaucrat." Palpatine seemed to pause before
snapping a reply through the speaker. "Do not forget, Brakiss, that when
this station was constructed I saw to it that explosives were planted
throughout the superstructure to ensure your obedience. I can destroy
this Academy on a whim. Don't tempt me."
"I wouldn't dream of it, my lord," Brakiss said, feeling his anxiety
grow. "But if I am to be part of your plans of conquest, I must be
consulted. I must be permitted to give my input, because I alone can
provide the valuable fighters you require to defeat the Rebels and their
upstart new Jedi Knights."
The Emperor snapped, "You will learn of my plans when I wish you to
learn of them! I require no advice from you or from any other.
Perhaps you need to be reminded that you are merely an expendable
servant. Do not demand to see me again. I will emerge from my quarters
when it suits me."
With a click like the sound of a breaking bone, the comm unit switched
off. Brakiss felt worse than ever. More insignificant, more confused.
The red Imperial guards stood firmly in their positions, holding their
force pikes upright. "You will depart now," one of them said.
Without replying, Brakiss spun on his heel and marched in silence down
the hollow, echoing corridors of his Shadow Academy.
-----------------TOO STUNNED AT first to move, Jaina hung on to the edge
of the hangar bay doors on the platform high above the rest of the
treetops. She stared down in unwilling fascination at the spot where
Garowyn had fallen through the branches. Replaying the scene in her
mind, still not quite able to believe what had happened, she saw the
Nightsister falling . . . falling.
By the time Jaina managed to tear her gaze away, Chewbacca had retrieved
the speeder bike and buzzed back up toward her.
With an urgent sound in his voice, he pointed to the explosions and
flickers of laser cannon fire in the distant fabrication facility. TIE
fighters shot overhead, pummeling the residential areas with bright
energy bolts.
Chewbacca gestured with a long hairy arm, pointing to the seat behind
him on the speeder bike. Jaina gulped. Surely he didn't intend for both
of them to ride that thing? The tiny vehicle was already wheezing and
chugging under the Wookiee's considerable weight.
On the other hand, the two of them had walked to the hangar bay this
morning, and they had no other vehicle to take them to the besieged
fabrication facility-and they had to help. There was no time to call for
a bantha.
She hoped her brother and her friends were all right.
Chewbacca brought the speeder bike to an unsteady hover in front of the
repair bay and motioned for her to get on. Jaina squelched her
reservations and climbed on behind him.
She found little room to sit, and her legs were still slick from spilled
lubricant, so she threw her arms around Chewie's broad chest as far as
they would go, threading her fingers through his thick fur to keep
herself from sliding off.
With Jaina's added weight, the speeder bike sank. Chewbacca revved its
engine, and they took off. Though their forward progress was faster than
Jaina had expected, the vehicle continued to lose altitude until it
barely skimmed over the bushy treetops. The engine sputtered. Jaina
could feel the toes of her boots brushing against taller branches and
sprigs of leaves. The wind in her hair blew the strands wildly in every
direction.
Jaina yanked her foot up to avoid an upthrus , t bough, and nearly
capsized the little speeder. But Chewbacca felt the change in balance
and managed to compensate by shifting his weight in the other direction.
Jaina clung to his fur and gratefully maneuvered herself back upright.
"Can't we go any faster?" she shouted into his fur-covered ear."Her
heart pounded, and the sweat of fear evaporated in the cold breeze of
their wild flight. The Wookiee roared back at her, clearly understanding
the danger their friends might be facing.
When they reached the fabrication facility, Jaina could hardly believe
her eyes. Grayish white smoke curled up from half a dozen different
windows and skylights in the factory.
Splintered and charred wroshyr branches lay scattered about like the
broken playthings of a spoiled giant. Imperial fighters still flew in
formation in the skies, but they dwindled in the distance, heading back
to orbit.
"Is the attack over already?" Jaina asked in disbelief. Chewbacca echoed
her surprise.
The Wookiee had a hard time controlling the laboring speeder bike as
they landed, and both he and Jaina tumbled off. Not bothering to check
their bruises, they picked them selves up and rushed to the closest
entryway, calling for Jacen, Lowie, Tenel Ka, and Sirra.
The scene inside the factory was utter chaos. Frantic Wookiees rushed
about bellowing orders, extinguishing small fires, righting toppled
machinery, and helping injured or trapped friends. The smell of charred
wood and singed fur stabbed at Jaina's nostrils. Pale chemical smoke
stung her eyes, but most of the fires were already contained, and a
fresh breeze blew in through the open windows to clear the fumes.
Chewbacca roared in recognition as he rushed to his sister
Kallabow-Lowie and Sirra's mother. She was bent over another injured
worker, tending his wounds. With nimble hands Kallabow had shaved the
fur from around a bleeding cut and covered it with a coagulant bandage.
Lowie's mother looked up, blinking dazed eyes set within whorls of
auburn fur, and she and Chewbacca engaged in a rapid, barking
interchange. Jaina caught only parts of the conversation, but learned
enough to know that the devastating raid was indeed over.
The Imperials had struck with lightning speed, causing enormous damage
to the outlying facilities-but their main objective had apparently been
to raid the equipment stockpiles and steal computer components and
encryption devices.
Jaina was reminded of Qorl's previous raid on the New Republic supply
cruiser Adamant,
when he had commandeered an entire shipment of
hyperdrive cores and turbolaser batteries. The Second Imperium was
definitely making plans for an all-out war-and soon.
Jaina bent down next to Kallabow. "Have you seen Lowie and Sirra? My
brother Jacen, or maybe Tenel Ka?"
Lowie's mother rattled off a series of woofs, growls, and barks in a
worried tone. She spread her arms to indicate the surrounding
pandemonium, then gripped Jaina's shoulder, asking her to track down her
children. Another Wookiee wailed in pain farther down the corridor;
still dazed, Kallabow blinked wearily and moved past Jaina to help the
victim to his feet.
"We've got to @ind them," Jaina said, and Chewbacca nodded vigorously.
Chewie made his way deeper into the damaged facility, assisting wherever
he could and barking out phrases that were incomprehensible to Jaina.
Never one to stand around wringing her hands in an emergency, Jaina
helped to bind up minor wounds and put out small fires. Occasionally,
she used the Force to help muscular Wookiees heave aside smashed
equipment. Every time she asked about her brother and her ftiends,
however, she received only confused answers.
Moment by moment, the cacophony around Jaina increased with a confusing
mix of Wookiee yowls, barks, and growls. Oh, how she wished that Em
Teedee were here to interpret all the nuances. Her head spun with
confusion and disorientation, and she was relieved to see Chewbacca
motion her over to help him tend a wounded engineer.
Chewie greeted her with animated gestures and an excited bark.
"What did you find?" Jaina asked, biting her lower lip.
The injured engineer spoke, her voice just above a wheezing purr. Still
unable to understand, Jaina turned to Chewbacca for an interpretation.
The irony of the situation might have struck her as funny had the
circumstances not been so serious.
Chewie explained slowly enough that Jaina could follow. The engineer had
seen the two young Wookiees and two human visitors run down the corridor
behind her. Not long afterward, she had noted some of the Impe166 Star
Wars: Young jedi Knights rial attackers in the same
corridor-stormtroopers and humans in dark capes.
"Any way out in that direction?" Jaina asked hopefully. "Is it possible
they escaped?"
The engineer shook her head. No exits, only maintenance trapdoors that
opened to the dense and dangerous forests below.
Trapdoors.
Chewie finished binding the engineer's wounds, thanked her, and hurried
off down the corridor she had indicated. Jaina skidded to a stop at the
edge of a gaping hole blasted in the floor, where an access hatch had
been ripped from its hinges. Chewbacca had to pull Jaina back physically
to keep her from toppling over the brink. He growled, sniffing around
the burned metal edges.
Jaina nodded. "Yeah, looks like the work of stormtroopers. They must've
thought the trapdoors needed to be wider and did a little remodeling."
She blew out a long, slow breath, trying to calm herself. "Lowie told us
how dangerous it is down there. But I guess it didn't stop them."
Chewie opened an emergency locker on the wall. He yanked out two
knapsacks filled with supplies and tossed one to Jaina. Then, with a
barely audible growl, he pointed down at the hole in the floor.
"You're right, of course," Jaina said. "What are we waiting for?" She
peered down into the inky darkness below.
'Your jungle," she said at last. "I guess you'd better lead."
-----------------DEEP INSIDE HIS hairy chest, Lowbacca felt his heart
contract with primal fear. He had known since childhood the dangers of
descending into the perilous, untamed forests of Kashyyyk. The darkened
depths often proved deadly even to those who entered fully armed and
trained.
Nobody went to the underlevels willingly . . . but now, with Zekk and
Vonnda Ra and the stormtroopers pursuing them, Lowie knew the primeval
forest was their only chance.
The last time he had ventured beneath the secure treetop cities had been
to search out glossy fibers from the syren plant, from which he wove his
prized belt. He had thought himself so brave to accomplish the task
alone.
Sirra's friend Raaba had also gone by herself-because Lowie had. Despite
her skills and courage, though, the dark-furred Wookiee female had never
returned. But Lowie was not alone this time. He and his friends could
fight together against whatever dangers the forest held.
Above and behind him, he heard the crashing of boots and the snapping of
twigs as ar.inored Imperials followed them, shining brilliant glowbeams
into the dank, forevernight levels, startling exotic creatures that had
never seen the light of day. A few random shots rang out as
out in a gasp of thick smoke.
Lowie and Sirra did their best to lead Jacen and Tenel Ka, using their
darknessadapted Wookiee vision to find broad, sturdy branches along the
trunks of the wroshyr trees. Panting with the desperate effort, @wie
wheezed encouragement. The friends pressed on blindly, with no specific
destination, knowing only that they had to keep going if they were to
lose their pursuers in the maze of the forest underworld.
Em Teedee's round, yellow optical sensors shed a bright glow into the
murk, the most illumination they could risk. "Do be careful of those
branches, Master Lowbacca," the droid said as a twig scratched his outer
casing. "I wouldn't want to break loose and fall. That happened to me
once already, if you'll recall, and it was a frightfully unpleasant
experience."
Lowie groaned, remembering the misadventure on Yavin 4. Losing the
translating droid had caused other problems as well, since no one at the
Jedi academy had understood Lowie's warnings that Jacen and Jaina had
been captured by the TIE pilot Qorl.
Behind them, lightning shot through the darkness and branches crackled
as the stormtroopers opened fire again. Lowie instinctively ducked, and
Sirra dropped to a lower branch without bothering to test it for
sturdiness.
Streaks blazed across the thickets, erupting in fire and choking smoke.
"Hey, look out!" Jacen cried.
Tenel Ka grabbed on to a branch with her hand and swung down to Sirra's
level. "This way!" she said. "It is safe." Lowie leaped after her, one
arm around Jacen's waist, then sprinted across the mosscovered boughs.
Farther from the warm sunlight, each forest level had a different
ecosystem made up of matted platforms of interlaced vines, branches that
grew together, accumulations of mulch in which other plants-fungi,
lichens, squirming flowers-flourished. Thousands of insects, reptiles,
birds, and rodents fled at the sound of the intruders.
Lowie chuffed for the others to follow him.
Racing along on his flat feet, he wrinkled his black nose and sniffed
the odor-congested air.
His nostrils tingled with a tantalizing, terrifying scent-a scent he had
smelled bef
ore.
Something that had nearly cost him his life.
In the lambent glow from Em Teedee's optical sensors, Lowie saw the
wide-open maw of a syren plant, its glossy-yellow petals atop the
blood-red stalk looked like a gaping mouth waiting for a meal. The plant
had somehow taken root in a crook between two intergrown branches, and
fed upon denizens of this forest level. The sparkling fibers that formed
a plume at the carnivorous flower's center shone temptingly bright,
while a delicious scent lured unsuspecting victims.
Beside him, Sirra also sniffed the air and spotted the deadly plant. She
growled in anticipation, her patchwork-shaved fur standing on end. But
Lowie put a hand on her arm, shook his head, then gripped her arm @y.
He could tell his sister wanted to secure the precious syren fibers and
prove her bravery as soon as possible.
Sirra groaned in disappointment, but she clearly understood. their
priorities. Behind them, several levels up, the pursuing stormtroopers
fired again, this time at some large creature crashing through the tree
levels.
Far too dangerous. The Imperials were too close.
With a growl Sirra took the lead, and Lowie guided his friends behind
her.
As she raced through the morass of branches, ducking her head to keep
her red-gold braids from snagging on thorns or low-hanging limbs, Tenel
Ka reveled in the calisthenics that pushed her body to its limits. But
she would have preferred to do it without the threat of sudden death