With fluid Wookiee grace, Raaba began to sprint across the incredible drop as if the sagging chain were a rope bridge. Her heavy footsteps sent jolting vibrations along the links, and even with the Force, it was all Jacen could do to maintain his balance.
He crept along one tiny step at a time.
Jaina climbed up after him.
Lowbacca, agile from climbing trees and vines for most of his life on Kashyyyk, easily brought up the rear. He moved backward along the chain, still pressing one hand against his wound and holding his lightsaber with the other.
Unfortunately, the thick chains and the perilous height did not deter the combat arachnids. The spined carnivorous creatures clambered onto the chain as if it were a web they had spun.
When the companions had scrambled about halfway to where Raaba’s ship had landed, Lowie bellowed an order. Em Teedee called to the others, “Master Lowbacca urges you to increase your speed, although I myself would suggest that you also exercise extreme caution.”
“We’re being careful, Em Teedee. Don’t worry,” Jacen said, easing forward a couple of steps.
“That is most reassuring, Master Jacen. However, I still reserve the right to express concern about your well-being.”
As if to make Em Teedee’s point, a cold, dry breeze picked up, howling in the open air. Jacen wobbled. “Blaster bolts!” he said, windmilling his arms to stabilize himself.
The chains creaked and swayed beneath him. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”
“Maybe not,” Jaina answered, glancing at the chasm below them, “but falling down there is an even worse idea. So what are we waiting for?”
Although the combat arachnids moved more slowly along the chains than the agile Wookiees, they might still be able to catch up with the humans before they reached safety. Realizing this, Lowie held his ground, wrapping his Wookiee feet around the links of the chain, bending his hairy knees, and holding his lightsaber up to defend his friends from attack. He gestured with his claws extended, urging them to go on ahead without him.
Raaba grunted encouragement to him and increased her speed, leading the way.
Tenel Ka followed, keeping her careful balance, but Jacen had trouble following as quickly. Jaina held both of her hands out to steady herself.
They crept forward as quickly as they dared, desperately making their way toward Raaba’s ship, and possible rescue.
One of the horrible creatures finally reached Lowbacca, and he met it with his lightsaber. The combat arachnid reared up, using several legs to maintain its balance.
Its crimson body core glinted menacingly under the hazy sun of Kuar.
Lowie slashed with his lightsaber, but the arachnid dodged sideways, eluding the beam, In a counterstrike, it swept out a segmented leg and caught the ginger-furred Wookiee with the tip of one footpad. The blow knocked him backward—and Lowie toppled off the thick chain. Jacen and Jaina both screamed.
At the last instant, though, Lowie reached out with his free arm and grabbed one of the heavy metal links of chain. He swung beneath it, using his momentum to bring him up and around to the other side of the combat arachnid. As the creature stretched down to snatch at him, like a fisher trying to scoop a meal from a stream, Lowie grasped one of the arachnid’s stable rear legs and used it to haul himself back up onto the chain.
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 this skyscraper, away from the walls of the great crater.
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.
14
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.