The arachnid turned, trumpeting its outrage.
Lowie swung his lightsaber like a club and cleaved a long gash through the
center of the monsters eye cluster. The creature roared and thrashed, spewing
venomous saliva from its mouth hole. ' It took all of Lowie's strength to evade
the arachnid's attack and reach its body core. Then, with a great growl he
shoved the monster off the thick chain. It railed its many legs as it fell down,
down, down, until it splattered in a starburst pattern far below at the bottom
of the crater.
Lowie scrambled backward, 'getting to his feet and regaining his balance
again as the other combat arachnids hesitated, wary now that they had seen their
Wookiee foe emerge triumphant from battle with one of their kind.
Raaba finally reached the other end of the chain where it was anchored to
the high rooftop. She sprang from the chain and stood waiting, ready to offer
her help to the young Jedi Knights.
Tenel Ka moved to the anchor point and stopped to extend her hand to Jacen
as he inched toward her, trying not to look down.
Lowie's wrestling match with the combat arachnid had made the chain bounce
and shake so much that Jacen and Jaina had been forced to spend most of their
concentration on not falling, rather than making forward progress.
Now, though, as they neared the dubious safety of the rooftop and Raaba's
ship, Lowie began bounding toward them along the chain, running with uncanny
balance to catch up. The two combat arachnids that had not yet given up the
chase scrambled after him, hissing and clicking, ravenous for fresh food.
Raaba yanked one of the small detonators from her crisscrossed ammunition
belt, set the timer, and without pausing lobbed it in a perfect arc. The
detonator sailed across the open air.
Seeing the glittering object, the foremost combat arachnid reared up to
catch it, as if the thermal detonator might be some sort of flying prey. The
grenade detonated, shattering the creature's exoskeleton like a thousand chips
of glass, spraying its innards in all directions.
The shock wave from the explosion hurled Jacen sideways. He spun, grabbed
for balance, and then slipped from the chain but Tenel Ka's arm shot out like
lightning to seize him by the elbow and halt his terrible fall.
Spurred by the thought of all that open air below, Jacen and Tenel Ka drew
on the Force together to bring him back up again.
Then the two of them, along with Jaina, finally scrambled to the sturdy
rooftop, where it was safe... almost.
The final combat arachnid, seeing its prey about to escape, increased its
speed.
It hissed and scrabbled along the chain, climbing like a deadly acrobat.
Lowie bounded ahead, ignoring the gusts of wind, planting his feet firmly
from one link to the next. The last combat arachnid dosed the gap, its jaws
clacking. Lowie could not look behind him to fight. His best chance was to reach
the rooftop before the creature could grab hold of him.
The wound in his side was bleeding profusely now, but the young Wookiee
didn't seem to notice.
"Come on, Lowie!" Jacen cried. "You can make it!"
With a final burst of speed, Lowbacca leaped the final several meters to
the rooftop.
The last combat arachnid charged forward like a landspeeder out of control,
but Tenel Ka thought quickly, efficiently.
In a flash of blazing turquoise, she swept her lightsaber downward to sever
the ancient metal links that anchored the chain to the rooftop.
Just as the combat arachnid reached out to grab for the companions, the
chain broke free and fell away with the monster still clinging to it. The heavy
links of corroded durasteel plummeted, carrying the unwilling passenger down,
down, until it struck the far side of the amphitheater wall with enough force to
squash the multi-legged creature.
His heart pounding, Jacen was relieved to see how isolated they were on
Lowie slumped to the rooftop, shaking and exhausted. Raaba came over, put
her arm around his shoulder, and gave him a powerful hug.
She touched the wound on his side with a groan of concern, then went to her
ship to rummage for a medikit.
Lowie looked up at her, his eyes filled with a thousand questions.
"My, that was exciting, wasn't it?" Em Teedee said.
SQUEEZING ALL THE young Jedi Knights into Raaba's interstellar skimmer
proved to be a challenge, especially with the two large Wookiees. But Lowie did
not mind being in such cramped quarters with his friends... and Raaba.
The wound in his side still burned, but Raaba had efficiently applied a
graft bandage to the injury, finding her well-stocked medikit quickly, as if she
had cause to use it with some frequency. She calmly helped the 'exhausted
companions settle into her crowded skimmer, which she had named the Rising Star.
Lowie found it very unsettling to see the chocolate-furred young Wookiee
woman, a friend whom he had once mourned as dead--now resurrected before him. He
kept his eyes on Raaba's glossy coat as she guided the little craft across to
the rim of the crater where the Rock Dragon waited.
She flew with a speed and conscious skill that.stopped just this side of
recklessness.
Her eyes flashed bright, her movements were strong--and she seemed to be
avoiding conversation.
Lowie felt a growing discomfort. He wanted to ask Raaba so many questions,
find out why she had disappeared, why she hadn't communicated with him for so
long.
Her loss and apparent death had been one of the saddest experiences in
Lowie's life.
"Er, Master Lowbacca, if you would be so kind as to give me a bit more
room.... "Em Teedee said. Lowie looked down at his waist to find that he was so
hunched over in the cramped cockpit that the little droid had been smashed
between his stomach and his thigh. Yet somehow Lowie hadn't noticed the
discomfort. After he rearranged his lanky limbs to remedy the problem, the
little droid sighed. "Ah, thank you, Master Lowbacca. That's much better. Now my
systems aren't in danger of overheating."
Circling the broad crater, Raaba brought her skimmer in for a smart landing
fifty meters from the Rock Dragon, and the young Jedi Knights gratefully climbed
out, stretching their cramped muscles. In the aftermath of their ordeal with the
combat arachnids, they all thanked her profusely.
Raaba, though, seemed indifferent to the gratitude of the humans.
Jacen and Jaina joked in relief after their near brush with death.
Lowie could see curiosity about Raaba on the twins' faces and sensed the
questions that clamored to be asked. Tenel Ka's expression was less readable,
but he could sense her interest as well.
Raabakyysh straightened her dusty red headband, pushed the ornamented
armlets more firmly against her biceps, and gruffly asked if she could do
anything else to help.
Jaina's brandy-brown eyes narrowed in a shrewd expression that Lowie knew
well.
"Yes. Matter of fact, I really need to run a calibration check on the jump
&nb
sp; sequencer in our hyperdrive," she said, "Iql need Jacen and Tenel Ka to help A
surprised-looking Jacen interrupted.
"But Lowie always helps you with--" Jaina nudged him none too gently with
her elbow, and Jacen subsided into conspiratorial silence.
"Thing is," she continued, "we're here looking for someone, someone
important, and I'm wondering if we overlooked any clues that might help. It
would really mean a lot to us if you and Lowie would do one more circuit of the
crater rim--just to see if there's anything we missed. And maybe you could do a
few flyovers of the crater while you're at it."
"Ah," Tenel Ka said, nodding. "Aha. An excellent plan."
Humans could be much more perceptive than aliens gave them credit for,
Lowie reminded himself. He was pleased when Raaba instantly agreed to the
arrangement.
She seemed happy to help in the search for Bornan Thul--or perhaps she just
preferred to be away from the other young Jedi Knights. She made no objection to
Lowie's accompanying her, though, and he hoped she wouldn't avoid.talking to him
once they were alone.
Lowie knew from their past time together that Raaba was not one to stand
around once a decision was made. With a few bounding leaps she was back at her
skimmer, climbing inside as she tossed a glance behind her at Lowie. He trotted
after her, and then settled himself in the Rising Star's copilot seat, a
position that had begun to feel natural to him.
With a blast of repulsorjets that sent plumes of dust into the shimmering
air, the Rising Star lifted off, and Lowie's spirits lifted with it. Through the
front viewport he could see Jaina toss him a lighthearted salute before Raaba
banked the skimmer and took off in the opposite direction around the rim.
Finally sharing a moment of privacy with her, Lowie felt the growing impact
of the good news: Raaba was alive! She had not been torn to pieces by Wild
animals in the lower levels of Kashyyyk's jungle, or swallowed whole by a deadly
syren plant.
But where had she been for so long? And why had she not tried to contact
her friends or family to reassure them of her safety?
Lowie's sister Siren had been as distraught as he himself had been.
He remembered their terrible months of shared grief.
Lowbacca stared through the skimmers front viewport for a few minutes,
dutifully searching for clues that might lead them to Boman Thul... and hoping
that Raaba would broach these difficult subjects herself.
She did not. In fact, she said nothing to him.
At first he grew irritated that Raaba did not start a conversation. She had
been the one who disappeared, leaving all of them to mourn. Then, knowing the
pain and discomfort her words would necessarily bring, and wondering what excuse
she could possibly give, he began to dread what she might say.
Finally, Lowie could no longer remain silent. Clearing his throat with a
growl, he began his question in a voice filled with tension. At the same moment,
Raaba started to talk. The two Wookiees' words tumbled over each other, merging
unintelligibly in the confines of the small cockpit. As each realized the other
was speaking, they stopped, waited, began again at the same time, then burst
into chuffing laughter at the absurdity of the situation.
With that tension released, Lowie was finally able to ask Raaba what had
happened on the night of her disappearance.
Raaba replied in halting tones at first, averting her eyes. Her yearning to
do something important and unusual with her life had been great, so great that
she had been willing to risk her life to assure it.
Lowie had already known that much.
One night, without telling anyone, Raaba had brashly decided to attempt her
rite of passage alone, asking for no help from Lowie or Sirra. But she had no
sooner set out from the Wookiee tree city, had barely descended into the
reasonably safe upper midlevels of the thick Kashyyyk forest, when a vicious
katarn had attacked her.
Immediately, her hopes for completing the mission by herself were ended.
Though she managed to drive the katarn away, the beast left its mark on her,
tearing a pair of deep gouges along her ribs with its fangs.
Raaba knew full well that the scent of blood would bring other nocturnal
predator running, ready for an easy meal. To stay in the forest now would be
foolish, she realized, and to descend farther would mean certain death. But to
go back would mean impossible shame and embarassment.
Her only hope for survival lay above, in the treetops, in the safe, cozy
Wookiee homes where she had lived all her life. Yet even as she hauled herself
up branch after branch through sheer determination, Raaba found little hope in
the prospect of simply surviving, going back to what had been her routine. Her
brave attempt had been an utter failure--even cocky children climbed deeper than
she had gone. She had no heart to go back to her friends and family and admit
that she had begun her rite of passage only to retreat in cowardice at the first
sign of danger.
If was better for them to think her dead.
And her death would free her to pursue other dreams....
Raaba and Lowie finished their search around the crater's rim, and the
dark-furred Wookiee woman took the Rising Star out into the center of the
crater, landing it atop another tall building on the pretext of getting the best
overall view of the city in the deep rock-walled bowl.
When the two Wookiees climbed out of the croft, Lowie saw that Raaba had
brought him to the highest point inside the crater.
From the top of the creaking building rose a towering structure made of
open metal latticework--a lookout tower or a corroded communications relay,
Lowie guessed. Its peak rose more than a hundred meters above the top of the
building, level with the distant rim of the crater. Wind whistled through the
rusted girders.
Lowie's heart raced at the sheer height of the structure. Without
hesitation, Raaba sprang onto the latticework and began to climb.
Needing no encouragement, Lowie followed suit.
"Master Lowbacca, do be careful," Em Teedee scolded. "Do I need to remind
you that you are injured? You shouldn't be exerting yourself in such a fashion."
Exhilarated at being with Raaba, though, Lowie ignored the pain in his
side, careful not to tear loose the graft bandage. Soon he drew even with Raaba
as they climbed higher and higher, where their Wookiee instincts told them they
would be safe and protected.
After a few minutes he prompted Raaba to continue her story where she had
left off.
The feigned death had been a liberating experience for Raaba.
Once she had decided that her family would be better off thinking her dead
than a failure, a giddy feeling had come 'over her. If she was truly "dead," she
had nothing left to lose. She could start over, become a new person.
She had pressed her supply pack against her stomach to stanch the flow of
blood from the injuries the katarn had inflicted.
Then, knowing she would travel more easily without it, she left her pack
behind as a decoy, in hopes that the b
loodstained pack would draw away some of
the voracious predators already on her trail. She concentrated only on climbing,
climbing, increasing the distance between herself and danger. At the same time,
she distanced herself mentally from her home, her friends, everything she had
known.
Now, as they climbed the open framework of the rickety tower, Raaba looked
over to check the graft bandage covering Lowie's injury from the combat
arachnids.
Perhaps, Lowie thought, it reminded her of the wound that--as far as her
loved ones knew--had cost her her life....
Finally, during that long nighttime ordeal, weak from loss of blood, Raaba
had made her way to the hangar platforms on the outskirts of the Wookiee tree
city and stowed away on a Talz freighter.
The Talz first mate who found her, tended her wounds, and listened to her
story, told Raaba that he knew of someone who could help her in her plight. He
had been as good as his word.
The furry white pilot and first mate had taken her directly to Nolaa
Tarkona and invited her to join their burgeoning new political movement, the
Diversity Alliance.
Lowie absorbed the name of Nolaa Tarkona with great interest. It seemed