"Lieutenant, this is Captain Magneta. Report to my office at once."
***
Like the woman who occupied it, Captain Magneta's office was stern and uncompromising. Completely bare save for a desk, chair, and a single family holograph, the room seemed more like a cell than a workplace. Panaka stood at attention, unacknowledged, while Magneta conferred in low tones with a man dressed all in black.
At last Magneta turned to regard him. A tall woman with hawklike features, she kept her white hair pulled back in a short, tight braid. The brass plates on her Captain's uniform gleamed with fresh polish. "First, Lieutenant, let me congratulate you on your arrest. Naboo is safer because of your actions."
"Thank you, Captain," Panaka responded dutifully. "Of course I did not do it alone. Sergeant Bialy was my partner on this assignment."
"I expected you to say that, lieutenant, but I know you don't mean it." Magneta regarded him shrewdly. "Bialy is a fine officer, but I know your education. I recognize your strengths. Credit for the capture goes to you."
No response was required, so Panaka stayed silent. Magneta gestured to the man at her left. "This is Sate Pestage of Coruscant, special advisor to Naboo's own Senator Palpatine."
Trim and fit, with thinning black hair and a tight cruel mouth, Pestage looked like an exercise instructor forced to dress up for a funeral. His layered Coruscanti suit of business black would seem wildly out of place on one of the colorful avenues of Theed.
Pestage nodded at Panaka. "Lieutenant. The Gungan in custody has been identified as Kroke Modbom, wanted for crimes including treason and murder. He is being remanded to my custody and will be shuttled offworld within the hour. Senator Palpatine thanks you for your bravery and cooperation." Pestage shifted uneasily, looking for a place to sit down, but Magneta's office lacked guest chairs.
Panaka tensed and looked at Captain Magneta. "The Gungan is to be taken offplanet?"
"That's correct."
"This is a Naboo matter."
"And it will continue to be handled as such," Magneta responded with a touch of annoyance. "Senator Palpatine is a native of Naboo, in case that fact escaped you while you were offplanet yourself."
"With all due respect, Captain, the senator is a politician. This is a Royal Security Force matter."
"Magneta raised a warning finger. "You claim respect, yet you show none to me or to my office. The extradition orders have been signed by King Veruna. I serve the king. If you no longer obey the ruler of Naboo, then you have no right to wear that uniform."
"My apologies, Captain," Panaka said in a quiet voice, but he did not break gaze with Magenta.
Pestage cleared his throat to break the tense silence. "I know I speak for Senator Palpatine when I say Kroke's victims will be avenged. The killer will be brought to justice."
Panaka saw no advantage in arguing the point further. "Sergeant Bialy thought there was a second person at the scene. A possible accomplice."
"Yes, I read your report," Magneta answered. "And you will conduct a follow-up investigation into that matter as soon as you have completed your immediate assignment."
"Immediate assignment?"
"Traffic control. I realize the healers placed you off-duty, but a sea creature has run aground on an isolated stretch of coast north of Port Landien. I'd like you to command a small team of officers to divert pedestrian and vehicular traffic from the area for the public's safety until we can organize a disposal crew."
"Sounds simple enough. Another opee?"
"I suppose so, yes." Magneta held out her hand and Pestage placed a data pad in it. "Your squad won't be in the cleanup area. The carcass should be disposed of by nightfall, so just keep the vicinity secure until then. Orders are in this datapad. You are dismissed." Panaka took the data pad and turned to leave.
Pestage stepped forward and extended his hand. "Good luck, Lieutenant, and thank you again. I will be returning to Coruscant in the morning."
Panaka accepted the other man's hand and shook it firmly. Pestage leaned closer, studying the bandages on Panaka's face. "Those injuries - do they hurt?"
Panaka shook his head. "I don't let them."
***
The screeching rootjiggers were enough to drive anyone mad. Hillocks of nola grass flanked the roadway where Panaka stood, rust-tinged in the fading light of dusk. At the base of each nola stalk prowled a finger-sized root jigger beetle. Panaka couldn't see any but he could hear them all, as they forced air through tiny holes in their shells in the hopes of attracting a mate. The jiggers only mated a few days out of each year but their squealing was always loudest at sunset.
Panaka looked down at his own lengthening shadow as it stretched along the road, nearly extending all the way to his Royal Security Force speeder. Parked sideways to block traffic, the speeder winked back at him with the flashing hazard light mounted on its hood.
Not that traffic's a problem, Panaka thought. Not only was this region unpopulated, but it was much too far from Port Landien to attract curious gawkers. Only a single road serviced the area, and Panaka hadn't seen any vehicles drive down it in over an hour.
Behind him the terrain grew rockier the closer it got to the water. Panaka threw a glance over his shoulder. Jagged upthrusts of land threw sharp black shadows in the orange light, while tufts of sharpedged beach grass grew between flat tables of rock. The road he was standing on extended back in that direction for a kilometer, then veered left to follow the ocean coast down to Port Landien. By doing so it avoided a natural wall of serrated black rock fifty meters high. Behind that barrier, Panaka knew, lay the beached sea creature that was the reason for this dreary assignment.
Three other Royal Security Force officers, including Bialy, had also drawn this detail. Panaka had positioned them in a rough semicircle surrounding the zone but he couldn't see any of them behind the hills. A mild breeze blowing in from the shore tickled his scalp, and Panaka decided he was glad to have left his helmet in the passenger seat.
He saw the dust cloud approaching before he saw the other speeder. A battered green civilian model, the speeder slowed as its driver apparently caught sight of the roadblock. The setting sun glinted off its windscreen. Panaka wondered if the driver could see him amid the glare. He raised his arms, palms out, and motioned for the other speeder to stop as he slowly walked back toward his parked vehicle.
Several dozen meters distant, the speeder idled to a full stop. The dust cloud settled.
Panaka arrived at his own speeder and reached in the rear compartment for his data pad. The passengers - no, the single driver, Panaka corrected himself as he squinted - might need directions for alternate routes to Port Landien.
Dust billowed up suddenly. The green speeder shot forward as if kicked by a giant boot. Panaka froze for a split second, judging whether to draw and fire, but there was no time. He sprang away from the roadway, hit the grass, and rolled.
With a wrenching metal crunch even louder than the din of the root jiggers, the suicidal vehicle plowed into the side of Panaka's speeder. The Royal Security Force speeder stubbornly fought the shove. An invisible tractor beam dug out a furrow of dirt as the vehicle skidded sideways. The roadway's resistance quickly overloaded the beam, and Panaka's speeder-suddenly unencumbered - bobbed away over the rocks.
The other speeder, front end crumpled and smoking, steered around chunks of debris and accelerated down the road toward the coast. Panaka rose to one knee and fired six quick shots. Several shots hit the rear gate but the speeder didn't stop.
Cursing, Panaka got to his feet and ran toward his speeder, which had floated to a stop a dozen meters away. "Bialy!" he yelled, keying the comlink clipped to his collar. "Pestrak! DunniJ"
He couldn't hear anything over the shriek of the jiggers. "This is Panaka," he announced anyway, hoping someone could hear him. "I'm in pursuit of a speeder that smashed through the roadblock. Green SoroSuub model, damaged front end, one driver. Call it in and get over here now!"
He reach
ed the shattered Royal Security Force speeder and hopped inside, punching the ignition switch and exhaling in relief when the engines shuddered to life. Squeezing the steering yoke as if he could throttle the other driver just by willing it, he bounced over the uneven turf and steered back onto the roadway. Panaka opened up the throttle and the engines roared. The flashing hazard light on his hood still blinked weakly.
Panaka peered through the cracked windscreen for any sign of the other speeder. He was preparing to brace for the sharp left turn at the coastline when he suddenly caught sight of the green speeder, parked behind two coal black boulders at the foothills of the rise. Panaka jerked the steering yoke and slammed on the brakes, slewing the speeder around in a squealing stop that banged the passenger side against the rocks. He winced out of habit, but he could scarcely do any more damage to a vehicle that was already a total loss.
He leapt out, but the other speeder was empty. Panaka squinted up at the crest of the mount, ruby sunlight burning the corners of his eyes. Beyond that rim was where the beached animal lay.
The black rocks piled up above him, some crowned with a cap of moss, others split by prickly clumps of beach grass. There was no sign of the speeder driver, though Panaka admitted to himself that the attenuated shadows were deep enough to hide a small army.
He started to scale the slope, clambering over the polished rocks on hands and feet. The racket of the insects was gradually supplanted by the soothing sound of surf. Ten meters up, his boot slipped on a rock caked with bird guano. Panaka fell hard onto a jutting spar that broke his fall and nearly broke a rib. By the time he reached the top, salty sweat drenched his bandages and stung his sore eye. Running a hand over his face, Panaka blinked and gazed over the rim of the summit into the valley below.
Fully half a kilometer wide, the tidal basin was enclosed by high cliffs in a broad U-shape. During high water the cliffs would form a tiny bay, but at the moment the drained basin revealed a floor of black sand and glistening puddles. And smack in the middle, stark against the indigo carpet -
It was fantastic. And it was horrifying.
Panaka could not comprehend the size of the creature. His eyes picked out familiar details - a breaking wave, a circling bird - but, like an optical trick in which straight lines appear curved, he could not reconcile them against the backdrop of that thing. He experienced a brief moment of vertigo as his eyes struggled with his brain.
The thing lay splayed out on its side in the tidal basin, long and serpentine. Its submerged hindquarters were partly visible beneath the churning surf. The rest of the creature lay prone on the sand, its sagging flesh pulled down by the unaccustomed weight of air. Panaka was reminded of the cacodemons of Naboo folklore, that slithered up from the underworld and were struck dead when touched by the scouring rays of the sun.
A monster, he thought, and a dim memory corrected him. No, a sando aqua monster. Long theorized by cryptozoologists but never substantiated through hard evidence, the sando had a powerful pull on the popular fancy. To some it was myth, to others reality. Until now, Panaka had never held an opinion either way.
The monster lay in an agonizing still life. Foam broke over its merged rear flippers. Its forelimbs, long and hooked, lay quietly near the deep furrows they had earlier carved into the sand. The snakelike neck was twisted like a corkscrew, leaving the head - the size of a house - inverted in a classic pose of death. The monster's mouth gaped open, startlingly white teeth shining like great slabs of salt.
Abruptly the monster moved. Shuddering, it heaved over and flopped down on its stomach with a tremendous thud. A gaggle of startled seabirds took to the sky.
The monster coiled its head around as if searching for the sun. Puddled water sloughed off its back in thin rivulets. Its haunch muscles spasmed, and far out to sea Panaka saw an answering splash as a tailfin breached the surface with a slap. Its claws scrabbled weakly in the grooves they had already gouged out, and then the sando aqua monster collapsed with a rattling roar.
Panaka didn't know how long he'd been standing there. But the swollen orange sun was already dipping behind the ocean's perfect horizon.
Panaka began clambering down the inner slope, eyes straining for safe footholds and signs that someone else had passed this way. The way down was even more hazardous than the ascension, for the rocks along the basin's inner wall were slick with seaspray.
Halfway down, he paused. Panaka took his eyes off his feet for a moment and squinted at the sand surrounding the monster. If the fugitive crossed that open stretch Panaka might be able to pin him down with long-range blaster fire. But even as the thought entered his mind, Panaka boggled at the absurdity of it all. What was the runner doing down here? Did he hope to lose Panaka in the vicinity of the body? He's panicking, reasoned Panaka.
Panaka didn't see anyone crossing the expanse. He did, however, notice that the sand covering the floor of the basin did not extend all the way up to the foot of the slope. There, amid agglomerations of rocks that had tumbled to the bottom over centuries of waves and wind, dark black cavities punctured the crust. Deeper than any shadow, they looked like yawning mouths beckoning him into the underworld.
Panaka was reminded of the unmappable honeycomb passages that riddled Naboo. The entire planet was like a melon gnawed hollow by a colony of hungry worms. Rock tunnels run underneath this whole stretch of coast, he thought. If he's gone in that warren I might never find him.
As if spurred by Panaka's unspoken pessimism, a white-garbed figure appeared below from behind a rock, silhouetted against one of the openings like a ghost.
Panaka unholstered his blaster. "Hold!" he shouted, and fired a shot into the air. The figure whipped around and looked up at him, but the distance and darkness were too great to make out any identifying features. "Hold!" Panaka shouted again.
The figure paused as if deliberating its options, then took a step into the gaping tunnel mouth. It fell straight down and disappeared in an eyeblink.
Panaka jammed his blaster back in its holster and scrambled the rest of the way down the slope. He slowed as he neared the tunnel mouth. His target, down in the darkness below, was shielded by shadow and could probably take him down with a single shot.
But Panaka was also apprehensive for less tangible reasons. Despite his training and his natural disdain for superstition, the idea of jumping feet-first into stygian blackness was downright unnerving. And to traverse the cold channels directly underneath the belly of a dying behemoth represented fear in its most primal shape. Panaka leapt into the unseen abyss.
***
Panaka landed with a splash, blaster held tightly in his right fist. Immediately, he tucked into a ball and rolled to his left. But he heard nothing, and as his eyes adjusted he saw he was alone in a small rock chamber with a single exit.
Or was he? Along the weeping walls he saw several pale glowing orbs, each the size of his head. The dead clouded eyes clung to the rock and made sticky puckering noises as they focused on him.
Panaka had no idea what manner of creatures they were, but they disgusted him for reasons he could not explain.
A stricken bellow rumbled down through the entrance in the ceiling. The monster slapped some extremity against the sand overhead and the walls of the chamber reverberated. As if jolted from sleep, dozens more eye-creatures revealed themselves, uncovering their phosphorescent bodies one after the other with the wet sucking sounds of nursing babies. Panaka shuddered and ducked his head as he passed into the tunnel beyond.
The light from the orb-creatures dimmed quickly in the tight passage. Panaka considered switching on his field luma, but didn't want to destroy his night vision or paint too obvious a target for his quarry. He moved forward gingerly, testing the ground with each step.
A thin film of water covered the rock floor. Given their negative elevation relative to sea level Panaka had half expected these passages to be completely flooded.
The standing water made it impossible to scan for footprints. Panaka fro
ze, halting his breathing, and heard the distant echo of splashing footfalls. He also heard a faint mechanical hum. A pump?
By this point he was in total darkness. As he reached for his luma with his free hand, he noticed a pallid glow far ahead. The light was encouraging, but between there and here could lurk overhanging stalactites or ankle-twisting pits. Risky as it was, he needed a quick snapshot or the terrain ahead. Left thumb poised over the kill switch, Panaka activated his luma.
A whistling shriek erupted from behind him, like steam squealing out of a burst pipe. Something struck Panaka between the shoulder blades and knocked the luma from his fingers. It splashed in the shallow water and winked out, dousing the tunnel in darkness once more. Panaka waved his blaster around blindly.
A second thing, hard and cold, smacked against his neck and nipped at the skin with needle-sharp teeth. Panaka slapped the creature away, but dozens more struck his face, his chest, his hands, his hair. Panaka stumbled ahead, brushing the nightmares away with clumsy sweeps of his forearms. Shrill hoots reverberated in the claustrophobic tunnel, unnerving and disorienting Panaka. His knee thumped a spur of rock and he tumbled, whacking his head against the ground with such force he saw stars. Panaka crawled forward, half aware, striking for the light.
Unseen creatures piled on his back, munching through the leather tunic and hanging on two and three deep, as if they were all trying to ride a kaadu. Panaka sloshed through the water, lurching forward on his hands and knees.
Dimly, Panaka saw that he had entered the illuminated tunnel. Weak as the light was, it seemed to be an abhorrence to the tiny biters. The hard-shelled creatures hissed and sprang off Panaka's back. With the clatter of a skeleton in a rock tumbler, they quickly hopped back into the blackness.
Shaking his head to clear it, Panaka lifted himself up from the floor and felt the cold pressure of a blaster barrel on the back of his skull.
"Hands up," came a harsh male voice. "And drop your blaster. You make me twitch, you lose your head."
Star Wars - The Monster - Star Wars Gamer #2 Page 2
