Another laser blast burned by, narrowly missing the Rock Dragon. Lowie
punched the accelerators, trying to gain distance.
Jacen said, "Can't say much for this guy's manners-he didn't even
introduce himself before he fired." He and Thnel Ka crawled back to
their seats, holding on as Lowie spun around again, flying a frantic
evasive pattern.
Jaina fought with the controls, concentrating on their onboard defenses.
"I can't find the armament systems,' she said. "We've got to have
weapons!"
Tenel Ka said, "My grandmother would have made certain we were fully
armed."
'Yes, but I didn't intend to take us into battle," Jaina replied. "I
haven't studied the weapons systems yet!"
Lowie snapped a comment and continued to fly, dodging through the
debrisbut the sleek enemy ship came close in their wake. Em Teedee said
for him, "I agree with Master Lowbacca. We've no time either for target
practice or to learn these systems. I suggest we retreat immediately."
"We're trying,' Jaina said, her jaw tight.
"But who is this guy? What does he wantother than to blow us into space
dust."
Tenel Ka reached forward to the comm system and activated it.
"Attacking ship, please identify yourself. We mean you no harm." She
waited, but the other ship did not respond.
'Maybe it's one of those pirates we thought might be hiding in the
asteroid field," Jacen suggested.
"You may be correct, Jacen," Tenel Ka said.
"Here, I've got some of the weapons systems on-Ene,"Jaina said. 'But
this sure isn't like the Falcon." She punched several buttons, then
fired. Her laser shots went wide. The strange-looking ship kept coming
behind them, undaunted by the display of firepower.
"Small attack vessel,' Jaina muttered, checking her readouts. "Fast,
high-powered, and packing more weapons than I can scan . . . this guy
means business!"
"Let's just hope his business isn't to add us to the rubble of
Alderaan!" Jacen said.
As if in response to Jacen's comment, the enemy ship fired again,
damaging their shields. The impact sent a shudder through the Rock
Dragon's cockpit. Red lights burned on their control panels.
With a roar, Lowie plunged into the densest part of the rubble field,
squeezing between tumbling mountains of rock, huge asteroids left over
from the breakup of the planet.
Jaina fired their weapons again, and missed once more. 'I should have
calibrated these things . . . or at least figured out how they
worked."
Her hands flew over the control panels. 'Too late now."
The attacker shot another time. It seemed as if he was carefiffly
conserving his blasts.
'He can!t miss. Why doesn't he just blow us away." Jacen asked.
"He certainly has the capability," Tenel Ka said. "However, our
opponent seems to be targeting us precisely. Perhaps he wishes to avoid
errors. Ah, aha-he hopes to disable us."
Lowie glanced down at the status report, an electronic diagram that
displayed the Rock Dragon's shields, and discovered that the enemy's
blows had repeatedly landed in one spot. He roared, just as Jaina saw
it herself. 'Our engines-he's targeting our engines! He wants to board
us."
Accelerating for all the engines were worth, Lowie raced toward a
cluster of huge asteroids. The enormous drffung rocks were riddled with
craters, cracked with gigantic fissures left over from the planetary
explosion-places to hide.
Lowbacca growled softly to himself, wondering how he could dodge the
enemy long enough to gain sufficient distance to drop out of sight.
Even in this forest of orbiting rocks, it seemed impossible.
The other ship fired repeatedly, scoring decisive hits. Their shields
pod. The Rock Dragon spun out of control.
Lowie and Jaina fought to stabilize the cruiser before they careened
into an asteroid. "Power's down by sixty percent," Jaina said. 'We
could barely outrun him before now we've got no chance."
"Perhaps we do," Tenel Ka said. She crept to the armaments control
panel. "I think I know what this system is for. Find a hiding place,"
she said, 'and head there on my mark."
"What are you going to do, Tenel Ka?"
Jacen said.
"Observe."
"Do be careful!" Em Teedee wailed.
The attacking ship fired again, still making no effort to communicate
with them.
His blow struck its target, damaging the Rock Dragon's underbelly as
well as their second rear engine pod-but as the blow seared against
their hull plates, Tenel Ka punched a release lever.
Canisters of ionized decoy gas and shrapnel sprayed out of their aft
cargo hatch, detonating in a fireball that washed across their pursuer's
screens, almost certainly blinding him.
'Now, Lowbacca!" Tenel Ka shouted Lowie reacted instantly, punching the
controls and arcing around into the shadows behind one of the largest
asteroids.
Then he curved up toward another. His golden eyes scanned for a large
crater, a crack into which the Rock Dragon could slip.
Their ship limped along, barely able to fly, but Lowie hoped he had
evaded their vicious attacker long enough to hide them from view.
Suddenly he saw it: a cave. With engines failing, all of their shields
gone, and only a trickle of power remaining in the propulsion systems,
Lowie and Jaina fought to control the bucking Hapan ship.
They needed to hold the cruiser stable just long enough to descend into
the opening of the crater cave.
The jagged ceiling missed scraping their hull by only a meter. Lowie
had a bad moment, half-expecting the cave to grow narrower, squeezing
them between rock walls-but the chamber opened up, giving them just
enough room to maneuver and land.
They settled onto the rugged surface deep within a large grotto,
thumping to the ground as their engines coughed and died.
Rock walls surrounded them, as if the asteroid had swallowed them up
entirely.
"Good hiding place, Lowie,' Jaina said, patting the Wookiee on his
ginger-furred shoulder.
"Yeah," Jacen said. "Either we're safe here . . . or we're trapped."
IN ORBIT AROUND Ennth, safe from the powerful pull of the destructive
moon, Zekk docked the Lighting Rod against the largest of the refugee
stations. From the cockpit windows, he watched the planet below shiver
and gasp m its death throes.
Though he felt stunned, his heart went out to Rastur. The evacuation
commander still had not rested, continuing to work at high speed even on
board the ships. Zekk suspected the man kept himself busy to divert his
thoughts from grief over the loss of Shinnan.
Four reconditioned cargo haulers cruised in stable orbits next to
each'other, high above the atmosphere.Ihe decommissioned, lumbering
containers had been declared unserviceable for interstellar transport,
but they served well enough as holding tanks for the cast-off people,
refugees wai
ting to go back to a home blasted clean by lava and
groundquakes. The freighters'engines had been ripped out, and all cargo
bays had been lined with bunks and cubicles to accommodate the greatest
number of people. The survivors of Ennth endured. They would give up
their privacy and comfort for a year before they could venture back to
the surface.
Zekk remembered being a child on one of these refugee stations, how
nightmarish it had seemed to him. Yet these people were willing to
suffer again, as they had eight years ago and would again eight years
hence, for as long as they continued to put up with the cycle of
devastation.
Smaller ships flew around, supply runners continuing their ferrying
duties, dropping off cargo, arranging return schedules.
Now Zekk could see that while some of them had truly come to help-as
Peckhum had last time-many of the traders and expediters" were scam
artists taking advantage of a difficult situation. They charged the
absolute maximum for their services that the colonists could afford, and
the people of Ennth had no choice but to pay. . . .
When the last straggler ships arrived safely at the refugee stations and
Zekk had settled in, he went back to his quarters on the Lightning Rod,
having declined the colonists' offer of an assigned bunk inside the
cramped station. Besides, he needed rest and peace, to be away from the
crowds, away from so many people whose lives had suffered such tragedy.
He slept for a fall eleven standard hours, awakening stiff and sore . .
. but no longer exhausted, no longer at the edge of despair.
Back on the bustling refugee station, he made his way toward the upper
levels, taking a series of crowded turbolifts. People moved about,
chattering with each other, discussing what they had lost and what they
had saved, already making plans for their return to the surface of
Ennth. Zekk nodded in greeting, but did not join in their conversation.
Something disturbed him greatly about their persistence, their forced
optimism, their blindness to the tragedy they could have avoided-but he
could not pinpoint it.
When he finally reached the popular observation deck of the old cargo
hauler, Zekk scanned the groups of people until he saw Rastur standing
alone, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out one of the
windowports. The others left the stern man to himself, glancing
sideways at him, thenmurmuring sadly to each other as theylooked down
upon the blistering surface of Ennth. The world boiled below them.
The rigid man moved to one side and stared through- a macro-telescope
mounted on a stand near the observation ports. He stared for a long,
long time.
Zekk came up behind him. "Is it all gone?" he said.
Rastur was not startled. "I've checked out the positions of all our
cities. Newest Coast lbwn, Another Hopetown, Heartland Settlement. I
see nothing. No sign that we were ever there.... Once again, it'll be
a whole new world just waiting for us."
Zekk looked through the scope and saw flaming trenches of lava. Black
pillars of smoke rose up through the roiling thunderclouds. As the
immense moon moved away in its orbit and stopped kneading EnntWs
surface, the weather would stabihze again, the rains would come, the
lava would cool-and Ennth would be a clean slate, ready for the
colonists again.
And again and again "Why do you bother?" Zekk finally asked.
He clamped his lips tight as Rastur looked at him in surprise.
"What do you mean?"
@y do you keep coming back, when you know everything will be destroyed
again in less than a decade-over and over? Every time, there's so much
pain, so much death, so much destruction."
"And so much renewal," Rastur added.
He pointed down. "I have already began seismic studies, mapping out a
good location to build our next Hopetown. I will also choose the best
spot for erecting the house Shinnan and I designed together. Maybe I'll
find another wife, or maybe I'll live alone. Life goes on. We must
continue to do our best."
"But why, when you know it's hopeless?
Why not go someplace where you can live out your lives in safety, build
something that will last for future generations? There are plenty of
other planets."
Rastur's eyebrows knitted together. "Because this is our home," he
said, as if the answer was obvious.
"Then find another home," Zekk said.
"I've lived many different places."
"Yes, and now yoxfve come back to Ennth,' Rastur said. 'It all comes
back to Ennth.
This is our colony. We paid for it with our blood and our sweat. We
can't just abandon it."
"Even when you know more people will die in eight years?"
"And many more people will be born in eight years," Rastur said
stubbornly. "On a planet with four seasons, the colonists live and work
during the spring and summer and autumn, then crawl back into their
shelters during the wintertime, preparing for next spring.
'We all go about our lives during the daytime and return to sleep at
night, before another day begins. Ennth is just the same. We have
seven and a half years of building and renewal and success, before we
must retreat for a year during this time of groundquakes and volcanic
eruptions.
But then we come back again and rebuild and continue our lives. It is
an endless cycle."
Zekk was angry now, unwilling to accept this way of thinking. "It is a
pointless cycle," he said.
"But you are one of us, Zekk," Rastur said. 'You'll understand in time.
Once you see what it means to invest all of your hope and heart in a
place-a home-you won't be able to leave so easily."
Zekk drew in a deep breath. "Then perhaps I should just leave now," he
said. "I thought this planet might become my home again ... but this
isn't the kind of change I'm looking for in my life. You can have Ennti
an your en( s cyc e. I need something more permanent."
Zekk raced away from the Ennth system in the Lightning Rod, not turning
back to look at the bloated refugee stations or the angry moon whose
gravity still ravaged the planetary surface.
He flew on, his eyes and mind grimly focused forward. He would follow
the Force now-the light side-letting it direct him.
He would bounce from place to place until he found his destiny.
He knew that if he trusted the Force, he couldn't go wrong.
-----------------IN THEIR LTNCERTAIN and desperate hiding place inside
the broken asteroid, Jaina shut down all of the Rock Dragon's power
systems, hoping to prevent detection by the enemy ship.
"First order of business is to check the extent of our damage," she
said, moving about, all businesslike. She would have to keep her cool
during this emergency if the young Jedi Knights were to survive. 'I'm
not entirely familiar with Hapan engines or electronics, but we've got
to make these repairs."
Jacen turned to the warrior girl from Dathomir, his eyebrows raised, and
leaned close to her. "Do you think your grandmother remembere
d to put
an instruction manual in this ship?"
Tbne A no(.(e( wi'..i a grim expression.
"I would not be surprised if she had included specific procedures on
making emergency repairs in an asteroid field while an enemy hunts for
this ship."
"Ta'a Chume is a very thorough lady," Jacen argued.
Jaina consulted the console sensors before switching them off to
conserve their power cells. She determined that the cave contained a
minimal atmosphere; it seemed thick enough that they could survive
outside, provided they wore breathing masks.
@ast we woet need to wear environment suits,' she said. "That'll make
repairs a lot easier." "Mistress Jaina, is there anything I can do to
assist you?" Em Teedee said. "I am highly capable in many forms of
communicationespecially in conferring with electronic devices, such as
the shivs computer." "Good idea, Em Teedee," Jaina said.
"Lowie, let's hook up your little droid to the Rock Dragon's diagnostic
systems and see if he can find any shortcuts or reroutings we can use to
bypass the damaged systems. Meanwhile, the rest of us'll check out the
external damage." She placed her hands on her narrow hips. "If we get