A voice loud enough to wake a Jedi Master from a healing trance wailed in Tenel Ka’s ears. “Oh, curse my sluggish processor, I’m too late. She’s dead!”
Lowbacca bellowed a loud denial. At the same time, something reached out and gave her a sharp nudge.
“No,” Tenel Ka managed to croak. “I’m alive.”
Lowbacca gave a few crisp barks, and Tenel Ka found herself responding to his instructions even before Em Teedee could clarify, “Master Lowbacca asks you to push against the canopy with all your might whilst throwing your weight toward the port side—to the left, you know.”
Tenel Ka knew. She pushed and rocked. Despite the choking clouds of smoke from the burning engines, she grew calm enough to let the Force flow through her.
Even through her closed eyelids, Tenel Ka could tell when Em Teedee switched on the bright yellow beams of his optical sensors to cut through the smoke. “It would seem,” the little droid went on, “that the T-23’s canopy is wedged against a tree branch. Oh, we’re doomed!”
Then, just as the little droid finished his lament, the skyhopper’s canopy popped free, and fresh air flooded the cockpit. Both Tenel Ka and Lowbacca stripped out of their crash webbing and scrambled free of the wreckage. As they moved away from the smoldering craft, panting for breath and waiting for their vision to clear, Tenel Ka’s hand went automatically to her lightsaber to be sure it was still clipped firmly at her waist. It was.
“Oh dear,” Em Teedee exclaimed in a tinny voice. “Now we’ll most likely become lost in the jungle and captured by woolamanders. Do be careful, Master Lowbacca. I should hate to repeat that dreadful experience.”
Balancing on a tree limb beside Tenel Ka, Lowbacca turned to gaze at the crashed T-23 and uttered a low, mournful note. Tenel Ka could see that his distress came not from the thought of jungle creatures, but from the loss of his beloved vehicle. The warrior girl understood loss. She reached out her single hand to touch Lowbacca’s arm briefly and let the strength of the Force comfort him. Then, as one, they turned to seek out their destination: the giant battle platform—and the evil Nightsister.
To Tenel Ka’s relief and surprise, Lowbacca had managed to crash-land barely two hundred meters from where the battle platform hovered above the crowns of the Massassi trees. Before she could speak, though, her Wookiee friend gave a low woof of warning and pointed downward toward cover.
Tenel Ka understood immediately and scrambled down into the leaves and branches until she was hidden. If they could see the giant battle platform, then they themselves could be seen. They would need to make their way to the battle platform beneath the rippling green leaves, like swimmers below the surface of an ocean.
With only one arm to help her balance and pull herself along, Tenel Ka had to trust the Force to place her feet securely at each step. She even welcomed Lowbacca’s help when he offered it in crossing weak branches or broad gaps.
Tenel Ka wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to speak. Perhaps it was the air of sadness that hung about her Wookiee friend. “We will spend many enjoyable days repairing your T-23, Lowbacca my friend—you, Jacen, Jaina, and I. After this battle is over.”
The Wookiee stopped, looked at her quizzically for a moment, then chuffed with laughter. After a series of woofs, Em Teedee said, “Master Lowbacca adds that Master Jacen will most likely be delighted to have a captive audience to entertain with his jokes.”
Tenel Ka felt her own spirits brighten at that thought, and they moved forward at a more rapid pace. Her mind focused on the goal of defeating the Second Imperium once and for all.
Suddenly, she felt a tingle run up her spine. “Halt!” she said. A TIE fighter swooped low across the leaves, rippling the canopy around them with its hot exhaust as it circled to inspect the crashed skyhopper. Lowbacca growled, and Tenel Ka held his arm to restrain him from any rash action. The Imperial ship circled again over the wreckage, as if looking for survivors. Tenel Ka hoped the pilot wouldn’t blast the already-downed craft into a smoldering lump of slag and debris. After a tense moment, the enemy ship roared away in search of new prey.
She and Lowbacca pressed on through the trees toward where the battle platform waited.
It seemed like no time at all before Em Teedee said, “Unless my senses have become completely uncalibrated by the crash, we should be directly below the leading edge of the battle platform right now.”
Lowbacca held out a hand, motioning for Tenel Ka to wait, and scrambled up a few branches to check their location. At his low bark of triumph, she climbed after him and pushed her head above the leafy canopy. There, hovering ten meters over the treetops, was the underside of the giant battle platform, massive and threatening, armored for assault, bristling with weapons.
“It should be a simple enough task to destroy it,” Tenel Ka said.
The sounds of shouted orders and clomping booted feet carried down to them. Lowbacca pointed upward and then shrugged as if to say, What next? The platform was too high above the trees to make a jump, and they had no repulsorpacks of their own. Tenel Ka reached for the grappling hook and fibercord she kept at her belt.
“We’ll have to climb for it,” she said.
The platform hovered higher than Tenel Ka was accustomed to aiming, but the grappling hook caught firmly on the armored edge on her second throw. Tenel Ka tested her weight on the fibercord. The grappling hook did not budge. Then, wrapping her arm and her legs around the cord, she began to climb, using the Force to help levitate her when her single arm couldn’t provide enough support.
Above on the platform waited Imperial stormtroopers, heavy armaments, and a Nightsister from Dathomir.
Tenel Ka swallowed hard. She knew that although the Force was with them, the odds definitely were not.
8
The green-brown river that flowed sluggishly through the primeval forest was broad and powerful, yet outwardly calm. The current showed not the least bit of disturbance from the titanic struggle of good and evil taking place on Yavin 4.
The river hosted numerous life-forms: invisible plankton and carnivorous protozoans, water plants, trees that dangled sharp roots into the flow, and camouflaged predators that disguised themselves as innocuous parts of the landscape.
But as blaster shots rang out and the buzz of lightsabers droned through the jungle, other creatures moved in the thick branches over the river and in the water itself … creatures trained in using the Force.
Rounded reptilian snouts broke the surface of the murky river. Breathing slits rose up, nostrils flaring to draw in welcome oxygen. The three scaly creatures moved slowly enough that only slight ripples whispered across the water. Settling into position deep in the mud, they sniffed and lay in wait near the path at the river’s edge.
Their enemies would come soon.
Moving stealthily yet radiating a supremely confident power, three of the Dark Jedi trainees from the Shadow Academy strode through the underbrush, hacking away the dense vines and branches with their lightsaber blades. They reached the riverbank and paused to consult with each other, still searching for their opponents.
“Skywalker’s Jedi trainees are cowards,” one said. “Why don’t they come out and fight? They all hide in the jungle like terrified rodents.”
“How can they not be afraid of us?” another one said. “They know the power of the dark side.”
Consulting silently, with only a faint stream of bubble for communication, three of Luke Skywalker’s reptilian Cha’a trainees lunged out of the river, spewing a stream of water at their enemies. They used the Force to summon a hammering flow of the river, a column of drenching wetness that reared up like a snake, then splashed down. The Dark Jedi lightsaber blades sizzled and steamed. The three Cha’a hissed and chattered with laughter as they summoned up more and more water.