Tenel Ka asked, her warrior braids rippling in the wind like velvety
red-gold ribbons.
Jaina was sure her father and mother would not object to such an
arrangement.
After all, Jaina would simply be helping a friend now and then. She
grinned broadly.
"I think you've got yourself a crew."
Accompanying Tenel Ka, Jaina bounded over to where her brother and Lowie
were already examining the compact vessel.
"Hey, this isn't a very new ship, Tenel Ka,' Jacen said.
nnel Ka rapped her fist against a stained spot on the hull with a
satisfying thud.
is a fact,' she said.
"Lowie says the sublight engines need a tune-up," Jacen added.
"Looks like that comm transmitter's out of alignment, too,' Jaina
observed.
"I don't get it,' Jacen said. "Your parents can afford the best that
credits can buy.
How come they sent you an old clunker instead of a luxury speeder?"
Jaina ran a shrewd eye over the craft. "I'm not familiar with this type
of ship, but III bet she's got it where it counts," she said, "no matter
what she looks like on the outside."
"Ah. Aha," Tenel Ka said. "My parents reasoned that it would be unwise
to call attention to my personal vessel by making it elegant and
luxurious." A rare smile quirked the corner of Tenel Ka's mouth.
"Also, I believed Jaina and @wbacca would prefer a ship they could spend
time tinkering with.Jaina realized that her friend was right.
She chuckled. "This is a fact."
The Rock Dragon has significant advantages, too," Tbnel Ka went on.
"For example, my grandmother helped decide which subsystems to install,
adding many items no standard ship would carry Also, it displays no
markings of the Royal House of Hapes, nothing to mark it as a potential
target."
"I guess that makes sense. A nondescript shi wouldn't attract attention
from assassins or any other enemies," Jacen said.
'Who named it the Rock Dragon, anyway-kind of strange, isn't it?"
"I named the ship myself. On Hapes, ships are often called 'dragon."
The term @ dragoncomes from Dathomir, though. It is a chjl&s mckname
for an animal I once saw there," Ibnel Ka said. "Small, but highly
dangerous. The creature has rough mottled skin that acts as camouflage
when it hides in the rocks to guard its nest. A rock dragon eats only
plants and insects, but if attacked, it defends its nest ferociously and
stings its enemy. Its poison is strong enough to kill a fall-grown
rancor."
Jacen whistled.
"Good name for a ship," Jaina said. "IRTS take it for a short spin."
-----------------THE CONTROLS OF the Lightning Rod felt good in his
hands. As he left Yavin 4
behind, turning away from the Jedi academy, Zekk knew that he had his
whole life ahead of him and the whole universe to choose from. . . .
But he didn't know where to go.
Peckhum had shown him how to maneuver the battered craft during their
closeknit days on Coruseant, when the old man had often taken his young
friend along on supply runs. Back then, with no one but each other to
rely on, Zekk and Peckhum had been partners in all their grand plans.
The grizzled trader was independent, bouncing from job to job, trying to
make ends meet in whatever way he could. Zekk had operated as a
scavenger in the planetwide city's lower levels, occasionally spending
time with his unlikely friends Jaina and Jacen Solo.
Now, though, he had only himself . . .
and he needed to choose a destination.
Zekk drifted out of the Yavin system, reveling in his freedom, the
freedom to sever ties with his troubled past. He could create a new
life for himself, start over and do things right this time-if only he
could escape from the shadow-blot that continued to fill him, no matter
how much light he tried to draw in.
After hours of aimless cruising, unwilling to dive into hyperspace
without a preset course, Zekk finally selected a place to go.
He would go home.
But not to any of the worlds in the Core Systems, where the Shadow
Academy and Lord Brakiss had made him an integral part of their struggle
for a Second Imperium. No, those planets would never be home, no matter
how much he tried to convince himself otherwise.
And not back to Coruscant either. That place held too many bad memories
for him, too much past.
He wanted to go where he could forget his last few years and start anew
. . . a place he could still think of as home: the planet Ennth.
That was where he had come from, where he had spent the first eight
years of his life, where his parents had died in the recurring disaster
that struck that world every eight years.
Zekk had been born on Ennth. Less than a year later, he and his parents
had moved to one of the crowded and dirty refugee stations in orbit near
Ennth, as his people waited for the planetary convulsions to subside so
that the colonists could return and rebuild their ruined cities on the
scorched ground. Zekk had been only a child when the new
settlements-ambitious structures and waterways-were erected from
prefabricated modules.
The fresh ash that had rained down from erupting volcanoes made Ennt]Ys
agricultural lands fertile. Civilization on the planet had blossomed
frantically during those quiet years, like a desperate flower in the
desert after a rain, pouring its energy into a brief flash of life
before time and the environment ultimately claimed it.
Zekk had been nine when the year of disasters returned. A bright and
promising child, he had been evacuated and sent again to the crowded
refugee stations, where he was expected to endure a miserable existence
for many months . . . until the cycle of reconstruction and growth
could begin all over That time, though, his parents had stayed on the
surface too long, retnevmg their last meaningless possessions, trying to
salvage everything they had planted, as well as their furniture and
mementos. A groundquake had struck unexpectedly. The seismic shock,
larger than all previous ones, had its epicenter @lyon New Hopetown, the
village Zekk had helped build, the place a small boy had called home.
Fissures opened up. Lava spewed forth....
And no one had survived.
Orphaned at only nine, his home destroyed, young Zekk had been smart
enough to realize that he did not want to stay without guardians on a
world that proved so resistant to human settlement.
Acting brashly, Zekk had stowed away on one of the supply ships, not
knowing where he was headed or where his luck would take him.
Luck. He'd always had a knack for finding things, choosing the right
path. It had seemed a coincidence back then, but Brakiss had taught
Zekk that he had an aptitude for using the Force. It had helped Zekk
escape from Ennth.
From that point on, he had hopped from one ship to another, scrounging a
life for himself He had finally hooked up with old Peckhum, who treated
him with kindness and caring, giving him a chance.
Now it was tim
e to go home.
He scoured the Lightning Rod's navicomputer records, projecting
holographic paths from the generator Jaina had newly repaired, as he
searched for the proper coordinates. Ennth, by no means a popular
world, was located on no major trade routes.
Luckily, Peckhum had several obscure navigational files-mcluchng records
of the previous evacuation. Zekk was surprised to see that the old man
had been to Ennth during the initial supply runs, helping,to take people
off the planet. Peckhum had never told Zekk.... Maybe his old friend
felt somewhat responsible for not staying to do more for the colonists.
Zekk punched in the coordinates, anxious to see how much the anguished
world had changed since he had left it. Eight years had passed.
The Lightning Rod shot into hyperspace.
When the planet appeared in front of him, long-forgotten memories
flashed through Zekk's mind. He sat in the pilot's chair, powering up
the comm system as the Lightning Rod settled into normal space again and
approached Ennth.
The large moon had a pocked and cratered appearance, as if it held many
mouths full of fangs waiting to devour human settlements on the primary
world. The moon's path was highly elliptical, oscillating around Ennth
m an endless planetary dance. Once every eight years the orbit brought
the two celestial partners so close together that the moon grazed EnntYs
atmosphere. 'ndal forces and increased gravity cracked the ground,
sparked volcamc eruptions, and kneaded the worl&s surface, producing
groundquakes and tidal waves.
Hurncanes and storms destroyed anything on the exposed ground, while the
approaching moon npped away portions of the atmosphere, which was
replenished by the volcanic outgassing from EnntYs interior.
Now Zekk saw a bustling flotilla in orbit: merchant ships, rescue ships,
traders, and a motley assortment of ragtag vessels, as well as huge
cargo haulers that had been stripped of their hyperdrive engines to make
more room for living quarters inside.
Refugee stations. Zekk recognized them from his previous unpleasant
time spent aboard.
He had come at just the right moment, when people and his homeworld
needed him the most. The colonists were evacuating Ennth again. This
could be a way for him to redeem himself, a time to focus only on
helping others.
The giant moon hovered close in the sky, hurtling along in its
disruptive orbit. Zekk shuddered as a half-forgotten fear leaped within
him. But he drove it back. He would have to rise above his fears if he
was going to make a difference here.
The disaster was about to strike again.
JACEN RUSHED INTO the connnunication center an( ..oo.".ce( aroun( at tie
mm( boggling display of equipment the New Republic engineers were
mstalhng. He couldiyt see any cause for an emergency, but Raynar had
told him he was urgently needed here.
The young blond-haired boy from Alderaan had run with him through the
corridors of the Great Temple into the middle of this hotbed of repair
work. The two stood panting, surrounded by all the activity.
At one station @wie was busy rewiring the new slueld generator console.
Tbnel Ka assembled components for a larger, sharper cornm screen,
holding each piece in place with her chin or a knee and then fastening
it down with clamps and anchors. His sister Jama bounced around the
room with feverish enthusiasm, in the midst of twelve different projects
at once.
Jacen found the excitement vaguely bewildering-it was only a bunch of
components and electronics, after all . . .
nothing interesting. Oh, he was competent enough at running equipment,
but he didn't have an understanding with machines like Jaina did.
Instead, Jacen had an understanding with living creatures of all sizes.
He'd been in his quarters feeding his pets when Raynar had summoned him.
Now that Jacen had arrived, though, no one seemed to notice. "Hey,
don't everybody greet me at once," he said. He turned to Raynar beside
him.
"So what's the cause for alarm?"
The blond boy adjusted his newly washed robes and tightened his sash-a
dull brown sash, Jacen noticed, not a color Raynar usually wore. He
wondered if it had anything to do with the disappearance of his father.
"They, uh, said some creature got into a transformer housing," he
stammered, darting nervous glances toward the back of the room. "Tenel
Ka suggested you might be able to coax it out, so I, um, ran to get
you."
It gave Jacen a warm feeling to know Tenel Ka had thought of him to
at everything she did that Jacen often felt like a humbling buffoon
around her. But Tenel Ka had asked for him-and this was something he
was good at. He would be proud to help her.
He grinned at Raynar, but the other boy didn't grin back.
"Do you think it's safe?" Raynar asked hesitantly. "The creature might
be poisonous."
Jacen shut his eyes for a moment and sent a thought searching through
the room, past the flurry of Jedi students and New Republic engineers.
.
. .
There. He had it. Jacen opened his eyes.
"Well, it's not a crystal snake, if that's what you're worried about.
Nothing dangerous."
"Well, if you're sure, I'll go back to my station," Raynar said,
twisting his brown sash into knots around his fingers.
"This'll take just a few minutes," Jacen answered. "There's nothing
lurking anywhere near your comm console. Don't worry." Raynar nodded
and cautiously went back to his workstation.
Jacen headed to where Tenel Ka worked quickly and methodically, clad
only in her hzard-hide armor, a pair of boots, and a tool belt. "Hey,
Tenel Ka. How do you tell the difference between a rancor?" he asked
brightly.
Tenel Ka turned her cool gray eyes toward him and raised an eyebrow. "I
believe that one of its legs are both the same."
Jacen blinked in surprise. "You've heard that one before?"
'Yes." Tenel Ka did not stop working.
"Please hold this. Thank you. Yourjoke is a well-known piece of
non-sequitur humor from my mother's clan on Dathomir. Most people don't
understand it-even fewer find it funny."
Jacen slapped his forehead. "I should have known. Anyway, Raynar said
you wanted to see me."
"Ah. Aha." She gestured toward a metallic ho x fastened near the
ceiling. "I had hoped you could convince the creature to leave the
power transformer housing before it comes to harm, or before it causes
any damage to the circuitry."
'Hey, that's great, Tenel Ka. I think you're really starting to
understand how I feel about animals and why I like to collect pets."
"Perhaps," she said. Then in a drier voice she added, "I also had no
wish to disassemble and reassemble the transformer housing."
Jacen felt himself flush. Well, at least she had asked for his help,
which was rare enough for Tenel Ka.
Jacen rolled a portable piece of lightweight scaffolding ag
ainst the
wall, locked it into place, then clambered up to where the uninvited
reptilian guest had hidden. Placing his palm under a hole in the
transformer housing, Jacen sent enticing thoughts to the creature
inside. Warm. Safe. Warm. Food.
He concentrated, adding reassurance and calm thoughts, tempting the
creature.
In less than a minute, a spotted thyrsl slithered out and curled happily
on Jacen's palm. Long and flexible, the thyrsl looked like a skinny
snake with twelve tiny legs.
"You just crawled in there for the heat, didn't you?" Jacen crooned,
cupping it in his hand. "Don't worry, I'll take you someplace that's
nice and warm." He turned, holding on to the scaffolding with his free
hand, careful to maintain his balance. Out of the corner of his eye,
Jacen caught a flash of brightly colored robes.
"I just got a message that a ship's coming down to the landing clearing,
on final approach," Raynar said. "It's the Millennium Falcon returning
from Coruscant."
Jacen was just clambering down to the next level of the scaffolding.
"Hey, Dad didn't tell us he was coming back again so soon-" He loosened