expression softened. She didn't want him to solve her problem, she said,
but that didn't mean he wasn't helping.
Lowie realized that it was helping her just to have someone who
listened.
He clasped her shoulder, and Sirra sat closer to him. For now, that
seemed to be enough. -----------------FROM HER UNUSUAL perch, Jaina
surveyed the high-tech tree city and realized how much Kashyyyk looked
like an organic version of Coruscant.
Here at the canopy level, surrounded by industrial structures and
Wookiee living quarters, Jaina saw tall exhaust ports and crystalline
windows that reflected the hazy graywhite sky. The crowns of tall trees
thrust above the main canopy like skyscraper towers covered with
foliage. A huge clump of majestic growth in the distance sat like an
island above the leafy waves of the unbroken treetops; from this
distance, it reminded her of the pyramidal towers of the Imperial
Palace.
Jaina thought with a twinge of homesickness that she missed her mother.
The last time she and Jacen had returned to the capital world, though,
they had lost their friend Zekk, who had been captured by the Shadow
Academy. . . .
Clusters of Wookiee homes dotted the canopy, compact dwellings connected
to the computer factory complex by natural roadways that extended like
the spokes of a wheel across the treetops. Imported banthas trudged
along the wide, wooden roads, brushing against encroaching leaves. They
plodded along sturdy worn branches hundreds of meters above the
untraveled and treacherous lower levels of the primeval forest.
The bantha Jaina and her friends rode from Lowie's home to the computer
fabrication complex was large enough that all five companions could ride
on the padded seats strapped to the beast's back. The bantha had a rich,
spicy animal scent that tingled in her nostrils. A harness made of
bright red ribbons jingled with burnished brass bells.
Her brother Jacen patted the wiry cinnamon-brown fur of the enormous
beast of burden. Riding this bantha seemed to be the most enjoyable part
of their trip for him so far. The driver, a mousy Sullustan with huge
dark eyes that glinted in the sunlight, hunched between the enormous
ridged horns that curved around the bantha's head. The docile beast
moved along the wooden walkway, paying no heed to the lush vegetation on
all sides.
"Banthas were bred for desert travel," Jacen piped up, "but this guy
seems to love it here."
Indeed, Jaina thought, the beast seemed fat and healthy, content to
carry passengers from the residential districts to the main fabrication
facility. They passed other Wookiees walking to work, eating up the
distance with long-legged strides.
Beside her on the padded riding structure, Tenel Ka stared ahead, her
expression unreadable but alert, ready for anything. Lowie and Sirra sat
on the back cushions, chatting comfortably in the Wookiee language.
Jaina looked forward to her tour of the computer factory. She couldn't
wait to see the engineering marvels and industrial facilities the
Wookiees had installed on their wilderness world. Lowie probably would
have been eager as well, if he hadn't been so concerned about his
sister.
The bantha stopped and let them off at an outer checkpoint that gave
access to the technical complex. Using handholds on the padded seats,
the companions climbed down the hairy back of the bantha and jumped to
the interlocked wooden deck. Since the bantha transportation systems
were designed for use by tall Wookiees, the drop was a meter longer than
Jaina expected. She wondered how the diminutive Sullustan driver ever
managed to climb his way onto the beast's head.
Lowie paid the driver a few credit chips, and the bantha trudged back
down the cleared arboreal highway toward the residential islands in
search of new passengers.
Jaina looked at the multiplatformed industrial facility, seeing decks
mounted in tiers on the uppermost branches. Lowie growled in excitement
and pointed to a level platform high above and behind them. From this
angle, Jaina couldn't see anything on its surface, but then a small
craft rose with a grating roar of supercharged sublight engines.
"That's an old Y-wing," she said, recognizing the outdated designs of
the craft. The Y-wing had a triangular cockpit flanked by two long
engine pods that together gave the fighter its characteristic shape like
the letter for which it had been named. This starfighter had been
refurbished and upgraded, and its engines were loud and powerful. The
crafts afterburners kicked in behind the engine pods, and the Y-wing
streaked into the skies of Kashyyyk.
Another identical starfighter rose from the platform, hovered for a
moment as the pilot adjusted the controls, then streaked off after its
companion. A third and a fourth Y-wing also
soared away.
"How many of them are there?" Jacen asked.
Jaina watched in admiration. 'Probably an entire squadron,"
she suggested, then sud denly remembered something she had heard.
"The New Republic needs all the military i strength
it can get if we're going to fight the Second Imperium. We don't have
time to build all new ships, so I think they're refur bishing the
old ones that have been moth balled since the fall of the Emperor."
"What do you mean, refurbishinle" Jacen asked.
"Well, there's nothing actually wrong with the old Y-wings,"
Jaina said with a shrug.
"They were great fighters during the Rebel- i lion, but
with new technology we can mod ernize the engines, increase
their hyperdrive i I multipliers. Since we're on Kashyyyk, I'll bet
they're getting new navicomputers, guidance and tactical systems, and
central processors installed."
Lowie and Sirra nodded their shaggy heads vigorously to show
that Jaina was right. She looked into the sky and watched as, one after
another, Y-wings shot upward in a spectacular aerial display.
Sirra said something else, and Em Teedee translated. "Mistress Sirra
suggests we remain here to watch, since the upgraded ships often test
their new systems. She assures us it is quite a breathtaking sight."
Lowie bellowed in agreement. Jaina wanted nothing more than to witness
the demonstration.
When twelve of the ships had been launched into the air, circling over
the treetop industrial facility, they flew in tight formation, one
behind the other, a chain of powerful spacecraft.
Their engines boomed like distant thunder through the upper atmosphere.
The pilots followed their leader, swooping down, cracking the whip in
the sky.
The Y-wings formed convoluted figure eights, flying so close to each
other that their hulls were almost kissing. But the new guidance systems
and engines did not fail them.
The refurbished Y-wings performed flawlessly, and Jaina felt a warm
satisfaction inside. She held her breath, amazed.
If Qorl and the Second Imperium could see this demonstration, she mused,
they might th
ink twice before attempting to tackle the New Republic.
From one of the connecting structures that linked the perimeter platform
to the central levels of the fabrication facility, a door dilated open.
An excessively tall, spindly droid appeared, its legs like thin support
pipes, its long arms coppery. The droid had a squarish head with rounded
corners and optical sensors mounted on all sides. It strutted out,
moving with spidery grace as it balanced round footpads on the deck.
"Greetings, honored guests," the tall droid said, weaving on its leg
hinges as it walked.
"I am the Tour Droid, happy to serve you this morning. I have received
instructions to give you the complete tour of our facilities-in fact,
the expanded VIP tour. I will speak Basic, unless you prefer to converse
in Wookiee, Sullustan, Bothan, or another native language."
Jaina shook her head. "Basic will do fine, thanks."
The Tour Droid turned a pirouette on one long rodlike leg, and Jaina
guessed that the droid had been constructed so tall in order to
comfortably accommodate speaking with Wookiees.
The droid strode ahead with a mantislike gait. "You've already seen our
air show for this morning," it said. "Now for the good stuff."
Since Jaina loved learning about the way things fimctioned, every
workstation inside the fabrication facility intrigued her. Interesting
smells of lubricants, cryogens, and electrical solder surrounded her.
The air was filled with buzzing, humming sounds against a background of
white noise from thousands of complicated manufacturing labs.
Jaina looked to the ceiling high above their heads and saw embedded
glowpanels that suffused the corridors with a constant white light. At
regular intervals, where hallways intersected, they passed trapdoor
hatches that provided access to the underside of the factory and
emergency evacuation routes down into the lower forest levels.
The Tour Droid led the group into a room full of transparent cylinders
that stretched from floor to ceiling, pillars filled with a bubbling
fluid and sparkling diamondlike matrices.
"Here you see our crystal-growing tanks," the droid said, raising the
volume of its speaker patch to drown out the gurgling noises and whir of
air-recirculation fans. "In these carefully modulated tanks we send
electrical impulses in specific currents through the nutrient fluid to
distribute crystalline molecules in solution. This encourages them to
grow into a precise matrix with facet angles and electronic pathways
mapped for our galaxy-renowned computer cores. A building is only as
strong as its foundation, and these crystalline cores form the critical
foundation of our computer architecture."
Jacen rubbed his fingers against a curved tank, tracing the paths of
tiny bubbles as they rose toward the ceiling. "This is neat," he said.
"Please don't touch the cylinders," the Tour Droid said. "Faint
electrostatic discharges from your body could disturb the
crystallization processes inside."
Jacen'pulled his hand away and looked sheepishly at his sister. She
didn't bother to chide him for it, though, since she had wanted to do
the same thing herself.
The next room was exceedingly cold, with puffs of white steam curling
around the door fi-ame. The air smelled of scoured metal and frost.
Inside, robotic arms moved about, sloshing thin metallic wafers through
baths of liquid oxygen, pools of ultracold fluid that halted any
contaminants from spreading across the surface. "These wafers are
delicate circuit boards," the Tour Droid said, "a perfectly pure
substrate on which we pattern complex memory maps."
Jaina drew a long frigid breath, blinking her eyes. Even with their
thick Wookiee fur, Lowie and Sirra shivered, though Tenel Ka in her
scanty reptilian armor displayed no sign of discomfort. "Fascinating' "
she said.
TheIbur Droid turned and, with long scarecrowish strides, led them
through the cold room. The next chamber was large and bustling, filled
with hardworking Wookiees, each wearing a mesh bodysuit made of fine
wires that held their fur in place. White cloth masks covered the lower
halves of their hairy faces.
The workers looked up and chuffed greetings to the visitors. Lowie
waved, recognizing his mother at her workstation. Kallabow nodded,
blinking her eyes in their whorls of dark fur, then bent back to her
tasks, carefully concentrating on the circuits.
"For the past few months our workers have logged extralong shifts and
odd hours to meet the heavy quotas necessary to prepare our defense
against the Second Imperium," the Tour Droid said. "Here the Wookiees
are installing finished chips. The mesh suits you see them wearing are
electrostatic screens to prevent even the faintest stray foreign
particles from drifting into the air. Any contamination could be
disastrous, since these components are so complex."
"I can believe it," Jaina said.
The Wookiee technicians bent over their workstations, using delicate
forceps and tweezers to remove minuscule chips patterned and cut from
the large glittering wafers they had just seen in the cryogenic lab.
"These basic designs are used for many different systems," the Tour
Droid said. '@ile our specialties are in tactical systems, central
guidance computers, and mainframe system controls, some of our chips are
used in sophisticated droid models. Most droids are manufactured on
robotic industrial worlds, however, such as Mechis III." "Oh my, did he
say droids?" Em Teedee chirped. 'Do you suppose any of my components
might have been manufactured here?"
Lowie rumbled a comment, and Jaina nodded. "Chewbacca helped put you
together, Em Teedee. I suspect that lots of your components came from
here."
"Oh dear, you don't think he used defective or rejected parts, do you?"
Em Teedee asked.
Lowie chuffed with laughter, and the little droid scolded him. "My
question was entirely serious, Master Lowbacca."
After they walked through the chamber, Em Teedee continued to exhibit
his curiosity.
"Master Lowbacca, would you mind turning around so that I can see the
entire room? If this is my birthplace, I'd like to give it a good look.
. . . How fascinating!"
Lowie obliged, turning his waist so that the small translating droi&s
optical sensors could record every detail. "And I thought this trip was
going to be dull," Em Teedee said. "Ms is ever so much more interesting
than those dangerous adventures you insist on having."
For the end of their tour the long-legged droid took them to the highest
platform in the entire facility, the transportation control and shipping
tower, a computer-filled room with workstations so high off the floor
they were at Jaina's eye level where she couldn't easily reach them.
Several Wookiees stood around the stations, gazing up through the
transparent dome overhead. The dome was reinforced with support girders
that crisscrossed in triangular patterns against the hazy sunlight
shining down.
"Because we are such a busy commercial facility," the Tour Droid said,
"a constant stream of space traffic comes through this complex. Here we
verify every incoming transport craft to make certain we receive no
unwelcome visitors. We also have security monitoringsatellites in orbit,
ready to defend Kashyyyk,once they receive orders from the control
tower."
The Wookiee traffic controllers worked as a team, communication headsets
mounted to their shaggy heads and voice pickups clamped to their
throats. They did not divert their attention even for a moment as the
visitors entered.
Before theibur Droid could continue, Chewbacca strode in, accompanied by
@wie and Sirra's father, Mahraccor. Mahraccor waved at his children; his
dark streak of fur stood out much like Lowie's. Chewbacca bellowed a
greeting and held out a large misshapen object, a blackened device that
had once been a polished, precisely angled crystal.
"That's the Shadow Chaser's computer core," Jaina said.
Chewbacca nodded vigorously and spoke low growling words.
"Chewbacca and Mahraccor here say they have been searching for you
children," said the Tour Droid.
"Excuse me," Em Teedee chimed in, 'but I serve as the translator droid
here. Master Chewbacca, after returning from a pleasant visit with his
family, has removed the Shadow Chaser's damaged navicomputer central
processor core. As you can see, he has spoken with Master Mahraccor, and
they have successfully located the suitable replacement components to
get the ship up and running again. Hooray!"
Darkest Knight Page 6
