security alarm. Without hesitation he pressed the button. "There, that
should
do it."
Chewbacca growled in Threepio's face with enough force that the android's
audio sensors shut down to reset themselves. Then he manhandled Threepio in
his furred Wookiee arms, carrying him bodily down the hall at a fast lope.
"All right, have it your way, then," Threepio said. "We'll go to the
control center and shut down all the holograms."
Jacen and Jaina felt the slimy surface of the tunnel as they crawled
downward. They had no idea where they were going, but they knew they had to
find some other way home.
Jacen reached up, felt no close ceiling, and climbed to his feet. The
twins could see nothing in the darkness, only a faint glow ahead. They made
their way toward it--cautiously this time, afraid they might find another
ogre. Jacen smelled sizzling meat, and he heard guttural words, the first
human voices they had heard since deciding to go home without Threepio and
Chewbacca.
Jacen started toward the light, but Jaina held on to his arm. "Careful,"
she said. Jacen nodded and put a finger to his lips as a reminder. They
inched
forward, hearts hammering. They smelled the delicious scents of cooked food,
heard the crackle of fire, the chattering voices.
They reached a corner and peered around it to see a large blasted-out
room, a low-level reception area used thousands of years ago. Jacen and
Jaina
could see a bonfire, tattered figures moving between light and shadow, banks
of dimly functioning glowcrystals, and a glimpse of blinking computer
equipment. Then suddenly, from all sides, silent hands reached out to grab
them.
Firm grips, wiry arms. Five sentries struck at once, snatching Jacen and
Jaina and whisking them off their feet before they had a chance to struggle.
The sentries laughed even as the children squealed in terror. A cheer
went up from the people around the bonfire as the sentries carried the twins
out into the bright light.
Alarms pulsed and whooped in the control center of the Holographic Zoo.
Red signals flashed; yellow lights blinked on and off in indecipherable
patterns.
Threepio was impressed at the commotion he had managed to cause just by
activating a few security systems.
The zoo's control droid sat in the center of an octagonal computer bank.
It had a spherical head encircled by optical sensors mounted every
thirty-six
degrees. From its central station the control droid sprouted eight segmented
limbs that scrambled over the panels, pecking at the buttons in a blur of
motion like fire-linked blaster cannons.
"Permission denied," the control droid said to them.
Chewbacca roared, but the control droid merely spun its spherical head
and ignored the Wookiee's outburst.
"I feel required to warn you," Threepio said to the other droid, "that
when Wookiees lose their tempers they are known to rip limbs out of their
sockets. I believe Chewbacca here is on the verge of losing his temper."
Chewbacca leaned forward on one of the segmented control panels, gripped
it with his hairy paws, and roared again into one set of the multiple eyes.
"Permission still denied," the control droid said.
"But you don't understand!" Threepio insisted. "There are two lost
children inside your Holographic Zoo. If you would just shut down the image
generators, we could search the habitats and find them."
"Unacceptable," the control droid said. "It would cause too great a
disturbance among the other guests."
Threepio indignantly propped his metallic arms on his hips. "But the zoo
looked empty when we toured it. How many other patrons are currently using
the
facility?"
"Irrelevant," the control droid said. "Such an action is strictly
forbidden except in conditions of extreme emergency."
Threepio waved his golden hands in the air. "But this is an emergency!"
Chewbacca had apparently had enough of formal requests. He bunched his
fists together and brought them down on the first control bank, smashing the
glossy black coverings and shattering circuit connections.
Sparks flew. The control droid's head spun around like a planet knocked
out of its orbit. "Excuse me," the control droid said, "please don't touch
the
controls."
Chewbacca went to the second segment of the octagonal board and smashed
it as well. The control droid flailed its eight articulated limbs, trying to
bypass circuits in the remaining systems.
"I must admit, Chewbacca, that your enthusiasm makes up for any lack of
finesse," Threepio said.
In no time the Wookiee had ruined the entire set of panels. Without a
single functioning hologram-generating system, the control droid folded all
eight of its articulated arms like a dead insect and seemed to sulk.
Chewbacca yanked Threepio's mechanical arm and hauled him back down to
the holographic habitats. Now every chamber was empty, white-tiled walls
with
strategically mounted hologram generators at the vertices of the room.
Various
guests had dropped garbage in among the illusions, refreshment wrappers,
torn
scraps of paper, and half-eaten nonorganic treats that had failed to
decompose.
"Jacen! Jaina!" Threepio called.
Alarms continued to squawk as Chewbacca and Threepio passed from one
habitat to the next. Threepio called up the data brochure inside his
computer
brain and guided the search, methodically moving from one room to another.
Every cell in the deactivated Holographic Zoo looked identical, and they
found
the children in none of them.
When they finally hurried to the last chamber, hoping against hope that
they would discover the twins crouched in the corner and waiting to be
rescued, they were suddenly met by the New Republic militia charging toward
them in response to all the alarms.
"Halt!" the captain of the guard said.
Threepio instantly counted eighteen humans, all wearing blaster-proof
armor. The militia members drew their weapons and leveled them.
In all his adventures Threepio couldn't recall ever having seen so many
blaster barrels pointed directly at him.
"Oh, my!" he said.
The feral humans brought Jacen and Jaina before their king. The
flickering warmth of the junk-heap bonfire made a pleasant smell. The strips
of unrecognizeable meat roasting on long skewers caused both children to
lick
their lips.
Grimy-faced sentries looked down at the twins and smiled. Their mouths
seemed a checkerboard of yellow teeth and black gaps. The king of the
underground humans sat on a tall pile of ragged cushions. He laughed. "These
are the fearsome intruders?"
Jacen and Jaina looked around themselves, gathering details. The refugees
in the former reception area had bedrolls, tattered clothing, and stashes of
scavenged possessions. Some sat mending rags, others worked on spring-loaded
animal trap
s. Two old men crouched holding small musical instruments cobbled
together from old pipes; they blew into the mouthpieces, comparing high
whistling notes.
The feral people wore torn and threadbare clothing, some mended, some
not, all very old. They had long hair; the men wore bushy beards. Their skin
was pale, as if they had not seen sunlight for decades. Some of them might
never have seen natural light at all.
The king seemed to have the best materials. He wore shoulder pads and
polished white gloves taken from a stormtrooper. His eyebrows were large,
his
reddish-brown beard wispy. Though his face was the color of raw bread dough,
his eyes were bright and alert. His smile also showed gaps from missing
teeth,
but it contained real humor.
Around and behind the king hung jury-rigged electronic equipment,
computer panels, holographic display modules, even one old-model food-
processing unit. Ancient generators had been wired into the frayed energy
grid
of the skyscrapers, skimming power from the main flow through Imperial City.
The lost people had obviously been down here a long time.
"Get these children some food," the king yelled, bending down to look at
them. "Well, now, my name is Daykim. What're your names?"
"Jaina," Jacen said, indicating his sister.
Jaina pointed to her brother. "Jacen."
A sentry with gray-blond hair tied in a long ponytail brought a smoking
skewer of the roasted meat. He yanked off the red-black pieces of meat with
his fingers and dropped them onto a squarish metal platter that had
originally
been some sort of cover plate. The sentry blew on his fingers, licked the
juices, and grinned at the children. He set the platter down in front of
them,
and the twins sat on the floor, crossing their legs.
"Blow on the meat before you put it in your mouths," the king said. "It's
hot."
The twins picked up small morsels, dutifully blowing until the meat was
cool enough to chew. King Daykim seemed to delight in just watching them.
"So what were you doing down here all alone? It's dangerous, you know.
Would you like to stay here with us?" the king said. "We're all growing old.
It's been too long since young people joined us down here."
Jacen and Jaina shook their heads. "We are lost," Jaina said around a
mouthful of meat. A thick welling of tears appeared on the edge of her
eyelids.
Jacen also started to cry. "Please help us find our home," he said,
looking toward the high ceiling. Somewhere up in the distance lay their
living
quarters.
"Up there?" King Daykim said, comically incredulous. "Why would you want
to go back up there? The Emperor lives up there. He's a bad man." Daykim
shook
his head and gestured around him. "We have everything we want here. We have
food, we have light, we have... our things."
Jacen shook his head at Daykim. "I want to go home."
With a sigh Daykim glanced back at his banks of computer terminals and
then flashed them a defeated smile.
"Of course you want to go home. Just finish up your supper. You'll need
your strength."
The sergeant of the militia escorted Threepio and Chewbacca back to Han
and Leia's quarters in the old Imperial Palace. "Our records indicate that
Minister Organa Solo and her husband returned not more than an hour ago,"
the
sergeant said.
Chewbacca moaned dejectedly. Threepio shot a sharp glance at him. "I
think you should be the one to tell them what happened, Chewbacca. After
all,
I'm only a droid."
"Rest assured we're doing everything we can," the sergeant said. "We've
had our teams combing the Holographic Zoo and the adjoining floors just in
case the twins found an emergency staircase. We're checking the logs of the
maintenance droid just to be sure that no one used the turbolift that was
being serviced." He snapped to attention. "We'll find them, don't you
worry."
Threepio used the override code on the doorway to open it. Then he and
Chewbacca stepped into the living quarters--to find Han and Leia sitting on
the self-conforming chairs, with the twins balanced on their knees.
"Children! Oh, thank goodness, you're home!" Threepio cried. Chewbacca
thundered a high-pitched bellow.
Han and Leia both turned to look at them. "Well, there you two are."
Threepio noticed at once that one of the panels from the air-ventilation
system had been knocked off, apparently from the inside. A stranger, a large
man, dressed in tattered but ornate clothing dashed to shelter behind one of
the larger pieces of furniture. He had long reddish-brown hair, a wispy
beard,
and uncommonly pale skin.
Leia returned her attention to the rag-clad man. "Seriously, Mr. Daykim,
I can't tell you how much we appreciate what you've done. I assure you the
New
Republic will do everything it can to repatriate all your people."
Daykim shook his head. "The Emperor never forgave mistakes, not even
accounting mistakes. We saw many of our fellow civil servants either
executed
or sent off to horrendous penal colonies. As soon as we caught ourselves in
a
simple but irrevocable filing error, we knew we didn't have long to live--so
we grabbed what we could and fled to the underlevels of Imperial City. My
bureaucrats who don't know any other life."
"We could find a place for you in the New Republic. We don't punish
people for simple mistakes. We could bring you all back," Leia said again.
"Look around you, we could give you your own quarters like these. Many of
the
buildings in the old Imperial City are abandoned."
"We know," Daykim said, "we live there ourselves sometimes. Thank you for
your offer." He stood up and cast a suspicious glance toward Threepio and
Chewbacca. He patted Jacen and Jaina on the head and flashed his gap-toothed
smile. "You're good little children. Your mommy and daddy should be proud of
you."
Han cleared his throat and extended his hand in thanks. The tattered man
grabbed it and shook vigorously as if pleased to give a firm, businesslike
handshake.
"I still don't understand why you want to stay down in those murky lower
levels," Han said.
Daykim swung one leg into the ventilation duct and looked around. "It's
very simple," he said. "Up here I was just a file clerk--down there I am a
=ing!"
With a last smile for all of them, Daykim vanished into the ventilation
ducts. They heard him thumping and scrambling as he disappeared down the
access tubes.
"Well, everything turned out right after all," Threepio said. "Isn't this
wonderful?"
In answer Han and Leia both glared at him.
"We want a story!" the twins said in unison.
Kyp Durron brought his stolen ship into orbit around the small forest
moon of Endor, where the second Death Star had been destroyed.
&n
bsp; Ignoring the sensors on board his stolen Z-95 Headhunter, he let his eyes
fall closed. He reached out with his sense ability, seeking across the
entire
landscape for shadows or ripples in the Force. He had to find the last
resting
place of the only other Dark Lord of the Sith he knew of.
Darth Vader.
Exar Kun, who had lived long before Vader, was pleased to know that the
Lords of the Sith had continued for millennia. But Kyp still felt driven to
find answers to the clamoring questions in his mind.
Master Skywalker said that Darth Vader, his own father, had returned to
the light side in the end. From this Kyp concluded that the powers of the
Sith
were not permanently connected with evil. That gave him a thread of hope. He
recognized full well that the dark spirit of Exar Kun had lied to him, or at
least misled him. The risk was terrible, but the reward would benefit the
entire galaxy.
If he succeeded.
Here on Endor, Kyp felt he could hide from the watchful eyes of Exar Kun.
He didn't know how far Kun's power extended, but he didn't think the ancient
Sith Lord could leave Yavin 4. Not yet at least.
Kyp instinctively worked the controls of Mara Jade's fighter, bringing
the Headhunter lower as he scanned the forests. After the Rebel celebration
of
their victory over the Emperor, Luke Skywalker had built a pyre for his
father
near the towering trees, not far from the Ewok villages. He had watched the
roaring flames consume the remnants of Darth Vader's mechanical attire.
But perhaps something had survived....
As the Headhunter cruised over the tops of the immense Ewok father trees,
Kyp searched with his mind, ironically making use of the exercises Master
Skywalker had taught him, how to reach out and touch all life-forms.
He caught the stirrings of the furry Ewoks in their tree cities. He
sensed large predators on the prowl one humanoid behemoth, a giant Gorax,
crashed through the trees, black hair swinging from side to side as he
searched for Ewok dwellings low enough to grab.
As he flew onward, Kyp's mind ranged far and wide across the Endor
wilderness. Then he felt a ripple, an echo of something that definitely did
not... belong.
Everything else seemed to have its place, but this did not conform. A
stain that seemed to absorb all other senses, casting waves of leftover