Dark Warning

by Jude Watson

  heart. His friend Garen Munn had been Commander of the Republic forces on

  Acherin - and had presumably died there on that awful day when the clone

  troopers had turned against the Jedi, slaughtering their former generals on

  the order of the Sith Lord who was now Emperor.

  "Plug in the coordinates," Ferus said. "It's our only shot."

  There was nothing to do now but hope that the fuel would hold out. As

  they spun through space, they tried not to tick off the kilometers in their

  heads. Finally, they approached the planet, a violet-tinged haze in the

  distance.

  Obi-Wan worked the comm unit, trying to raise a response. "This is

  strange," he said. "I can't get an answer. Not only that, but there's no

  chatter on the open lines."

  "That is strange," Ferus said. "Keep trying. Is there some kind of

  atmospheric disturbance in the air?"

  "No. They have a dense inner atmosphere, but nothing that should block

  communications."

  "We're going to have to enter their atmosphere," Ferus said. "I hate

  to enter anyplace without permission these days, but we have no choice."

  He pulled back on speed as they approached Acherin.

  "What's that?" Trever asked, pointing to some orange streaks in the

  sky.

  "Could be some naturally occurring cosmic gas," Obi-Wan said.

  "But we're in the inner atmosphere," Trevor said.

  Ferus immediately started turning the ship. "In certain conditions,

  like a dense atmosphere, the after-burn of a missile can leave - "

  A sudden streak crossed the sky. This time, they knew exactly what it

  was.

  "That's cannonfire," Obi-Wan said. "But what - " Suddenly, an imposing

  fleet of assault ships appeared, heading directly toward them.

  "The Empire," Trever said.

  Fighters took off from one of the assault ships - chasing a trio of

  small starfighters that now shot across the sky. The Imperial fighters

  began to chase the three renegades.

  Ferus swallowed. "Great. Out of all the planets in the galaxy, we have

  to pick one in the middle of a war."

  "We're going to have to land," Obi-Wan said. He quickly accessed the

  surface mapping systems. "Just put it down - we're nowhere near a

  spaceport, and we don't want to blunder into the Empire's hands anyway."

  Quickly Obi-Wan scanned the topographical sensors. "There's an area

  below in a canyon that would give us plenty of cover." He gave Ferus the

  coordinates.

  Suddenly, one of the renegade starfighters peeled off from the others.

  It bore down on them, flying so close its belly almost scraped the roof of

  their craft.

  "It's forcing me down!" Ferus shouted. "What's going on?"

  "And it's drawing fire," Obi-Wan added. "It's alerted the Empire to

  our position."

  "Yeah, this just keeps getting better."

  They screamed down through the sky. The surface of the planet loomed.

  "I can't hold this course," Ferus said. Cannonfire shook the ship.

  The ship on top of them was hit. Smoke suddenly obscured their vision.

  "We're going to crash-land!" Ferus shouted, wrestling with the

  controls.

  With a horrible groaning sound, the ship hit ground and skidded on

  rock. Ferus controlled the landing, but the battering it received from the

  rocks took its toll. It came to rest on one side, metal screaming against

  the rough ground.

  They activated the landing ramp, which only opened partway. Ferus

  searched the pilot's compartment and found an old blaster, which he held in

  his hand as he led the way out.

  A short distance away, the pilot of the renegade starfighter had

  emerged from its canopy - with a blaster at. the ready.

  Blaster fire streaked toward them, trying to pin them in one small

  area.

  "Don't move!" the pilot shouted. "If you move, you're dead."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The helmeted pilot stood on the hull of the ship, casually balanced,

  with both hands on the blaster. Obi-Wan reached out a hand and Force-

  pushed. The pilot stumbled back... as Ferus raised his own blaster and Obi-

  Wan leaped forward to place the blade of his lightsaber above the pilot's

  neck.

  The pilot looked up with wide, dark blue eyes. "Well," she said, "what

  do you know. A Jedi."

  "Who are you?" Obi-Wan asked.

  "Raina Quill. I'm a commander in the Acherin resistance. Pleased to

  make your acquaintance. That is, if you could manage to take your

  lightsaber off my neck."

  She was a humanoid woman of about Ferus's age. Her gaze seemed

  friendly, if intense, but Obi-Wan wasn't about to let her free yet.

  "Why did you force us down?"

  "Because you were about to land in the middle of enemy-controlled

  territory, right within range of a turbolaser. I had a feeling you wouldn't

  like that. Hey, I thought all the Jedi were dead."

  Obi-Wan deactivated his lightsaber. "Not all."

  "Apparently." She gingerly came to a sitting position. "Ow. As it is,

  we're still behind enemy lines. And I have a feeling those starfighters

  didn't lose us. They had better things to do. But I bet they broadcast our

  landing site to the ground army."

  "Who's the enemy?" Ferus asked.

  "The Empire, of course," she said.

  "But you were a Separatist planet."

  Raina rose to her feet and took off her helmet, shaking out a long

  auburn braid. "That doesn't mean we support the Empire. We wanted the right

  to secede from the Republic, not to turn the galaxy into a place of

  absolute power. Now we've got an Emperor breathing down our necks. Anyway,

  we were negotiating a truce with the Republic army when the Clone Wars

  ended. After we got a look at the Empire, we decided to call off the truce

  and keep fighting instead."

  "So how's it going?" Trever asked.

  "We've been fighting for almost a year," she said. "They thought

  they'd crush us in a matter of weeks. But they can't let us win. We know

  that. We're making a last stand in our ancient city of Eluthan. We've got

  our army concentrated there. It's a walled city, and we've evacuated most

  of the civilians. We should try to get there as quickly as we can. And,"

  she added with a rueful glance at their ships, "I'm afraid we have to walk.

  "

  "Did you know the Commander of the Republic Forces?" Obi-Wan asked

  her.

  "Garen Muln? Yes, I met him once, when we were negotiating the truce.

  But you should talk to our commander, Toma. He dealt with Muth. He was with

  him on that last day... the day the Chancellor said that all Jedi were

  enemies."

  The day of the slaughter. Obi-Wan felt Ferus glance at him. Ferus knew

  Garen had been Obi-Wan's good friend. Ferus had met him as an apprentice,

  in what he still thought of as his previous life.

  "Look, we'd better get to Eluthan," Raina continued. "You can talk to

  Toma there."

  Obi-Wan and Ferus exchanged a glance. They really didn't have any

  choice. They needed a ship to get off-planet, and Raina was their best bet

  to find one.

  They looked at Trever, and he shrugged. "I guess I'm along for the

  ride."r />
  "We'd better get going," Raina urged.

  They followed her through the canyon into a dense wood. "Much of

  Acherin is open land," she told them. "We only have three cities. Eluthan

  is the center of our culture. We fortified it heavily during the Clone Wars

  and we have a shield operating. That's why we've retreated there."

  They walked quickly for several kilometers. Ferus tossed a pack of

  protein pellets to Trever. He could see that the boy was tiring.

  "We only have a few kilometers to go," Raina said in a low tone. "The

  Empire has ringed the outskirts of the city with their army. We might run

  into some droid scouts. With any luck we can slip through. I know some

  shortcuts."

  They picked up their pace, close to running now. They came to a vast

  open field studded with massive standing stones, some of them hundreds of

  meters high. In the distance, a walled city loomed. It was built on a

  plateau, and the thick stone walls rose against a bleak yellow sky. It had

  been designed for fortification, but it was clear that the makers had an

  eye for beauty, too. The stone was laid in a pattern, and the contrasting

  grays and dark blues seemed to make up a sculpture of weathered stone and

  deep colors. There was a grandeur about it that made Obi-Wan and Ferus stop

  in their tracks.

  Raina noticed their reaction. "It is our treasure," she said simply.

  "And we believe it will protect us from anything."

  Not the Empire, Obi-Wan thought.

  Suddenly a high whine cut through the air.

  "It's a compact assault vehicle," Raina said. "Follow me."

  They ran behind her to enter a dense area of the standing stones. They

  stood, their backs to the stone, while the CAV approached, a droid piloting

  it.

  Obi-Wan knew the vehicles. They were small and agile, but prone to

  sensor jamming. He assumed that the Empire was using them primarily for

  surveillance in this area. One droid could cover a great deal of territory,

  and the vehicle was equipped with a medium-sized blaster cannon.

  The CAV sped past.

  "There'll be more," Raina said.

  They moved on. They went from the shelter of stone to stone, making

  slower progress now. Every so often a CAV would speed past, its droid pilot

  aiming a surveillance probe into the air. They were able to evade it each

  time...

  ... until they stumbled on a small squad of heavily armed droids. This

  time, there was no hiding. They heard the metallic click as the droids

  snapped into attack position.

  Blaster fire erupted from the droid squad. Raina reached for the two

  blasters strapped across her chest and kept up a steady barrage as Ferus

  charged. Obi-Wan took out his lightsaber and went after the left flank,

  while Ferus charged toward the right.

  Obi-Wan sliced off the head of a droid and used his backswing to

  disable the control sensor suite of another. Ferus flew through the air and

  executed a diving roundhouse kick, somehow slipping through the streaks of

  blaster fire without catching any of it.

  The other two droids retreated behind a tall standing stone and began

  peppering them with blaster bolts.

  "Here come the reinforcements." Raina pointed into the distance with

  her chin, where CAVs were approaching. "If you can dispatch those two, I

  can get to an open area and activate a smoke grenade. The wind is southeast

  - it will carry most of the smoke toward the CAVs. I can get us through the

  smoke to the secret entrance in the wall. That way they won't lock on our

  position."

  "Done." Obi-Wan summoned the Force and leaped to the top of one of the

  smaller standing stones. He jumped from one to another until he had the

  droids in view. Then he dropped behind them. Before they had a chance to

  turn and fire, two strokes of the lightsaber turned them into scrap.

  Raina raced to the open area and aimed the smoke grenade. She was

  still out of range of the cannons on the CAVs. The grenade flew through the

  air. Thick, acrid smoke billowed out and spread back toward the CAVs. Obi-

  Wan quickly ran back to the group.

  The wind carried much of the smoke away from them, but they still had

  to make their way through it, their eyes streaming. They followed the

  metallic sheen of Raina's armor as she led them through the smoke. When

  they arrived at what looked like a sheer wall, she pressed several stones

  in what appeared to be a random pattern. One large stone slid out.

  She motioned them inside.

  "Welcome to Eluthan," she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They walked through the narrow deserted streets. The city wasn't laid

  out in a grid, but in a random pattern, streets and alleys turning and

  ascending and descending the hilly terrain. The houses were made of mellow

  bronze stone, and were only a few stories tall.

  "Most of the citizens have evacuated," Raina explained. "This is

  pretty much just an army base now. But once it was a thriving city."

  They walked to a sprawling stone building on the edge of a grassy

  plaza. The plaza now served as a landing platform for the ships. A plastoid

  roof sheltered it and connected it to the building.

  "This used to be a school," Raina said. "Many of the students joined

  the resistance, and the rest offered the building as a base for operations.

  Most Acherins are totally devoted to this cause. We didn't have to ask for

  sacrifices. They offered them."

  Trever smirked. "Or maybe they just wanted to get out of classes."

  Raina didn't take offense; she laughed. "Maybe."

  Obi-Wan looked around at the low, stately building, the expanse of

  grass that had once thrived and now was brown and seared with the scorch of

  after-burn and the trampling of boots. Once, boys and girls had run through

  this grass, had studied at this school.

  Odd how much he hated war, yet how much of his life had been spent

  around it.

  Raina nodded at a guard standing outside the double doors, and she and

  her guests were allowed in. She quickly led the way to the command center,

  a circular hall in the middle of the building. It had once been a gathering

  place for students, Obi-Wan guessed. Now it had been outfitted with

  vidscreens and computer banks.

  A tall man with a shaved head saw them enter. His face was impassive,

  but Obi-Wan noted how his body relaxed and his gray gaze cleared when he

  saw Raina. Obi-Wan guessed this was Toma.

  "We thought you were shot down," the tall man said.

  "They tried," Raina said. "I lost my ship. But I met some friends."

  She introduced them.

  Toma looked at Obi-Wan searchingly. "I am glad to meet a Jedi."

  "You knew Garen MuIn."

  "Yes, we - "

  Suddenly the command screen lit up with pulsating lights. Toma turned

  and regarded the screen. "The counterattack has begun. The Empire has our

  fleet surrounded. We need to scramble all pilots back up there."

  "I'm ready," Raina said. "All I need is another ship."

  To Obi-Wan's surprise, Ferus spoke up.

  "I'd like to offer my services," he said. "Any chance to take a whack

  at the Empire, I'm for it." />
  "We could use your help," Toma said. "Raina, can you find our friend a

  ship?"

  "Ferus..." Obi-Wan said, but he didn't know how to finish the thought.

  He couldn't forbid Ferus to go. That wasn't his place. Ferus wasn't his

  Padawan.

  He would remain here. This was not his fight. He could never forget

  that his duty was to Luke and Leia. He could take no unnecessary risks.

  "Don't fret, Obi-Wan. I'll just do a little damage and come back to

  get you," Ferus said easily.

  "I want to go," Trever said.

  "Sorry, kid," Ferus said. "Not this time."

  "I'm really getting tired of being left behind."

  "I don't think stowaways have a choice," Ferus said.

  Toma turned to Obi-Wan. "Will you watch the battle with me? Your

  advice will be appreciated. I have great respect for the Jedi."

  Obi-Wan bowed his head. He would be happy to offer advice, but his

  heart was heavy. He knew this effort was doomed. Ferus saw his feeling in

  the Jedi's eyes, and turned abruptly to go with Raina.