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.
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